Getting an Electrical Engineering Co-op tips?

epicstruggle

Passenger on Serenity
Veteran
Does anyone have any tips on how to get a good Co-op for some going for an electrical engineering degree? Ive heard a few horror stories of spending the summer basically googling/web surfing. I'd like to use the co-op as effectively as possible.

so any tips? Or, any good companies to get a co-op with?

thanks
 
Where geographically do you want to be? I worked with one of my professors during undergrad to get an intro to NASA and wound up working there for the summers until I started my PhD.
 
Best to find contacts at all the gov't labs (NIST, NASA, national labs like Sandia, Los Alamos) and see if anyone needs co-ops. If they do they'll know how to arrange it through a local job-shop.
 
Best to find contacts at all the gov't labs (NIST, NASA, national labs like Sandia, Los Alamos) and see if anyone needs co-ops. If they do they'll know how to arrange it through a local job-shop.
do most government co-ops need a security clearance?
 
Does anyone have any tips on how to get a good Co-op for some going for an electrical engineering degree? Ive heard a few horror stories of spending the summer basically googling/web surfing. I'd like to use the co-op as effectively as possible.
Co-ops will generally be as useful as YOU want them to be. If you keep asking for things to do, and keep getting them done, you'll be rewarded with more things to do and you'll end up being a valuable member of the team.

If you don't, or do them poorly, busy tech-leads will let you surf/google all day, because they'e got their own problems to deal with, and spending their time to keep you busy won't make them go away.
 
Thanks for the tips. It looks like I will be interviewing (a few weeks from now) with Xilinx for a co-op position starting in May. Anyone have any opinions about the company?
 
Thanks for the tips. It looks like I will be interviewing (a few weeks from now) with Xilinx for a co-op position starting in May. Anyone have any opinions about the company?

I loved playing with their FPGA's when I was at University. Really neat bits of kit. A Genetic Algortithm was allowed to design a circuit that produced a tone when you clapped your hands and ceased when you stopped. This circuit was then downloaded to the FPGA.

Weirdest circuit you have ever seen, didn't have a clock or anything. Also turned out to be highly temperature sensitive and wouldn't work outside the lab. Never did figure out exactly how it worked!

But anyway, yeah to Xilinx for making good kit!
 
I loved playing with their FPGA's when I was at University. Really neat bits of kit. A Genetic Algortithm was allowed to design a circuit that produced a tone when you clapped your hands and ceased when you stopped. This circuit was then downloaded to the FPGA.
sounds like a fun project. Did you use the spartan 3 board/kit? Im looking at buying one, seems that a few universities are going to that board to teach microcontrollers, our uni is using something called the fox11 which has a motorola 68hc11 controller.
Weirdest circuit you have ever seen, didn't have a clock or anything.
I might be working on a global clock tree for them. :)
But anyway, yeah to Xilinx for making good kit!
Good to hear. From their stock market info, they seem to be a big company 5billion in market cap, so no small operation. Just wondering how innovative are they? I kinda want to work for a company that is always on the cutting edge. :p
 
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