Jeffrey Ren, a fourth-year Urban Planning student at Waterloo, shares his co-op experiences working for the City of Windsor and the City of Ottawa, and how the connections he built through co-op got him an offer for a full-time job!
Jeffrey has completed a total of five co-op work terms, one for the City of Windsor and the rest for the City of Ottawa. For his first co-op at the City of Windsor, he worked as a Planning Policy Assistant. During this time, one of the projects he worked on was the initiation of a heritage conservation district project. Alongside this project, he also spent time working on a heritage walking tour.
At the City of Ottawa, he worked as a Planning Assistant for three terms and also worked as a Transit Planning Researcher for one work term. “I think that a lot of the work that the planning students do is process type work as opposed to project type work,” says Jeffrey. As a Planning Assistant, a lot of Jeffrey's work had to do with the development review process. This is when people are interested in building new developments in the municipality and they come in to seek approvals for their projects. "When applications come in, you review them, work through an issue resolution, and then you draft reports, and so on and so forth. At the beginning, you would meet with the applicants to inform them about their required approvals, and there might also be meetings with the general public and with other stakeholders during the development review process.”
During his term as a Transit Planning Researcher, Jeffrey had the opportunity to work on a number of interesting projects. Some of these projects included looking into accessibility for bus stops and working on station designs for Ottawa’s light rail transit line.
How did you keep yourself motivated during your work terms?
“Being in the mindset where you're an employee here, you're being paid, you have to come up with something, you can't just be sitting there every day. That kind of mindset helped me keep myself motivated. I was also motivated by the wonderful supervisors that I had. I was very fortunate for my first work term to get an outstanding evaluation. So with that experience, it gave me a good understanding of what was expected for co-op students and the kind of outputs that I should strive for, and the quality of work that I should strive for. Having that constructive evaluation helped me to be in the right kind of mindset to keep myself motivated for the rest of the work terms.”
How do you think working for the City of Windsor and the City of Ottawa helped you towards your career goals?
“It made me realize that pursuing a career in the public sector in planning was something that I wanted to do. I think, especially at the very beginning of your university career, it's very difficult to figure out exactly what you do want to do, and whether or not you've even chosen the right area of study. We were just high school students, and we chose this area of study that we wanted to go into, and that's a daunting task for an 18-year-old. Getting those co-op experiences and seeing what the day-to-day work was like, really helped me solidify my belief that planning is, in fact, what I wanted to do.”
“I think having those co-op experiences also helps you figure out sort of the more specific aspects of what you would like to do. In planning, there are many different niches that you can go into. You can go into transportation planning, you can go into development review, you can go into heritage planning, there are a variety of different pathways for planners, and I found that I really did enjoy the development review aspect of that. I did find that I enjoyed pretty much all of the different aspects of it, but it was really good to just be able to see all of those different aspects of your potential career.”
“Being in the workforce, working with all those planners who have so many years of experience, you're also able to make those important connections that help you further on. There are really valuable relationships there, so you should definitely strive to make a good impression. I was able to find a full-time job by the end of my co-op. It wasn't with the City of Windsor or the City of Ottawa, but I did end up finding my job through the planners that I met during my co-op term at the City of Ottawa. So I'm very happy about that!”
What tips do you have for students going into co-op?
“I would say that, for your first couple of terms, it can be very challenging to find a job. You have to submit a lot of applications, and especially for your first term where you probably don't have any experience that's directly related to the job you're looking for. I was involved with Warrior Home, one of the student design teams during my time on campus, and I found that that was a very helpful experience as well. If you're not able to get a lot of hands-on experience in your area of study before your first co-op, you can look at trying to get some similar kinds of experiences on one of the design teams.”
You do have to submit a lot of different applications. You will probably not get a ton of interviews at the beginning, but that's not something to be discouraged by.
“That's a very regular thing that happens to everyone. You just have to keep applying and you'll eventually be able to find some great jobs. I think that process became a lot easier in later terms. I found that the work term evaluations are really important for the later terms, so you do want to make sure that you're getting as great of an evaluation as you can get.”;
“I wish that I had gotten a little bit more variety [of co-op jobs], perhaps. I think that's one slight regret that I have for my co-op terms. Variety, both in terms of municipalities or cities that I was able to work in, and working in the private sector as well, didn't really materialize for me in my co-op experience. I think co-op is an opportunity for you to get as many types of experiences as you would like and I would recommend that students take advantage of that opportunity.”
What’s next for you?
“Well, I guess it's just to graduate and get started with my career. That's something that I'm very excited about. I started my job already part-time this term, so that seems like it may be a little bit of a busy term for me ahead.”
“I hope to find more volunteer opportunities in my community. That's something that I hope to be able to do in the future. I do hope to get the opportunity to pursue some graduate studies in the future. I think this is just an amazing opportunity, having that job already there. I think I'll take advantage of that and work on getting my professional designation for being a professional planner.”