By Nicole Hailey and Allison Mudge
Megan Stringer had been through the shift once before. The second time would be easier, the junior civil engineering major thought. However, after receiving only one day off, and three total days of break, she realized adjusting back into classes after a six-month co-op may not be as smooth a transition as she’d hoped.
“It really sucks when you have been working 40 hours a week or more for six months, and then you get a day off which is your registration day so it’s not even a holiday,” she said.
Students had to declare for “I Am Here” registration for the Summer II semester on June 27, the one weekday for which classes weren’t scheduled.
Before realizing that the turnaround from her job at the Waltham-based civil engineering firm Simpson, Gumpertz ‘ Hager was so rapid, she planned to soak up the city or plan a trip home.
“It would have been nice to get a week off, because you can’t get anything done,” she said. “You can’t enjoy the city – you have no time off.”
While Stringer would have enjoyed a small vacation, Tiffany Dimesky said she couldn’t wait for classes to begin. The middler environmental geology major spent her first co-op at the City of Newton’s Department of Engineering and had entered the position with high hopes of learning new skills related to her field, such as getting practice on a mapping software program. But after six months, Dimesky found herself disappointed to perform mostly clerical duties like filing and answering phones.
“I was actually looking forward to getting back to classes and learning something,” she said.
With only three days of a break between classes and co-op, Dimesky said some students can start to feel rushed. But for her, the short turnaround is not a problem. She said she prefers classes because her eight-hour workdays left her little time to do anything else.
“I felt like I had no time to do anything, I was so beat by the end of the day,” she said. “At least with class, you can get things done during the day.”
Junior international business major Matthew Butryman recently returned to classes and said the transition from co-op is a welcome change.
“You don’t really appreciate what you’ve been doing for the past six months until you’re a few weeks into the next six months,” he said.
During classes, students always have schoolwork hanging over their heads, said English co-op advisor Pamela Goodale. Students who work normal business hours on co-op have free nights, but their days are booked.
“It’s a trade-off,” Goodale said.
Chris Haner, a middler political science and history major, said by the end of co-op, he was also eager to get back to classes. Although after attending two weeks of class, he wishes the break had been a bit longer.
Haner, who spent his co-op at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, said he enjoys having more free time during the day to take in the nice weather, but doesn’t like the homework he gets every night.
“One reason I liked the co-op schedule was because when you are done with work, you’re done,” he said. “When you’re in school, you always have something hanging over your head.”
But just as there’s good reasons to appreciate co-op, there’s also a bright side to returning to classes. Although students in classes have homework and exams to worry about, they have more free time during the day than co-op students, said Ashley Hawley, a junior marketing major preparing for her second co-op.
“Classes are more flexible. They’re pretty much optional,” she said. “You lose touch with your friends and what’s going on around campus when you’re on co-op.”
But venturing into co-op often has one major advantage: money. For co-op students who have paying jobs, money management is a key to success in the job experience, Butryman said.
“I have been on co-op but have another job on the side,” he said. Butryman, who is moving to France for a year this fall, said he wished he had saved more over the past six months. “Now I have two months to work harder than I did while I was on co-op so I can save.”
