I\u2019d forgotten how stressful looking for a Co-op summer placement can be. It\u2019s my second time looking for a placement so I thought it would be easier, but it\u2019s turning out to be just as difficult as the first time.\u00a0 That being said, I\u2019ve learned some things along the way.<\/p>\n
Job applications take time and effort, so it\u2019s easy to procrastinate at the beginning of the term.\u00a0 Finding a job for the summer can feel like a midterm that\u2019s a couple of months away.\u00a0 You know you should be working on it, but there\u2019s quite a bit of time right?\u00a0 If you\u2019re like me, a month can feel like an eternity away when you\u2019re just trying to survive the week.<\/p>\n
If you start early enough, there\u2019s usually not much competition.\u00a0 There will be quite a few job posting with relative low number of applicants.\u00a0 As the term goes on, the number of job postings will start to go down and the number of applicants per post will start to shoot up.\u00a0 50, 60, sometimes even 100 applicants per post will start to become the norm.\u00a0 As the term goes on, school also ramps up with midterms and projects, making life a lot harder.<\/p>\n
My advice is to not try to cram job applications.\u00a0 It\u2019s not impossible to find a job later in the term; it\u2019s just harder and more stressful, so start early.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s my first point.<\/p>\n
I was in this situation last year.\u00a0 It was getting late in the term, and I still hadn\u2019t found anything. So, I widened my search.\u00a0 I\u2019m personally interested in clean energy and it just so happens that UBC has a Clean Energy Research Centre.\u00a0 I contacted the professor in the research area I was interested in, and managed to secure a 4-month position which was later extended to 8-months.<\/p>\n
This brings me to my point second point: research opportunities on campus.<\/p>\n
As I\u2019m sure you know, a large part of what professors do is research.\u00a0 If you\u2019re interested in the research area they\u2019re in, talk to them.\u00a0 They are a really great source of knowledge, and if they don\u2019t have a job for you, they might be able to push you in the right direction.<\/p>\n
Not only will research give you valuable experience, but you can see if research is something you would like to purse in the future.\u00a0 I personally had a blast in my position.\u00a0\u00a0 I got to work with hydrogen fuel cells, which was a technology I had always been interested in. I even managed to attend a fuel cell conference here in Vancouver which had presentations from industry leaders from all over the world. \u00a0\u00a0Because of that, I now have a comprehensive layout of the fuel cell industry and know what companies are based here in Vancouver.\u00a0 This will be extremely useful if I decide to pursue a career in the industry.\u00a0 All of this happened because I talked to a professor.<\/p>\n
So be proactive; you would be surprised about what you can find at UBC.<\/p>\n
Good luck,<\/p>\n
Rigoberto<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019d forgotten how stressful looking for a Co-op summer placement can be. It\u2019s my second time looking for a placement so I thought it would be easier, but it\u2019s turning out to be just as difficult as the first time.\u00a0 That being said, I\u2019ve learned some things along the way. Job applications take time and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56343,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2381],"tags":[7244,364],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-professional-development","tag-co-op","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mechambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mechambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mechambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mechambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mechambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mechambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":548,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mechambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions\/548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mechambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mechambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mechambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}