Co-op Student Experience Project
At Waterloo, we have more than 60 years of experience in positioning and inspiring our students for the future of work and learning. Throughout that time, our co-op program has grown and changed to meet the needs of our students and the demands of a shifting labour market, as we continue to look for ways to improve our outcomes for you, our students.
In fall 2018, we launched the Co-op Student Experience Project to learn more about your experience of our processes and services, and how we can keep improving. Through this project, we've established an ongoing feedback process to better understand your evolving needs as co-op students, and have partnered with students and others across campus to turn your feedback into tangible results.
CEE conducted an exploratory survey of UWaterloo co-op students from Fall 2018 – Spring 2019. This led to several data-informed action items based on your feedback that include:
- Updated communications on our website and messages to reflect a compassionate tone that also provides clarity on the co-op process (launched in Spring 2019)
- Enhanced and increased transparency around options for students to withdraw from too many co-op interviews (launched in Fall 2019)
- Increased number of Not Interested rankings offered to students from 1 to 3 per term (launched in Fall 2019)
- Launched an enhanced, more transparent presentation of CEE’s co-op employment metrics (launched in Winter 2020)
- Greater engagement with campus partners such as Campus Wellness, AccessAbility, Health and Safety and program/faculty academic advisors (ongoing)
- Co-op Student Experience Map (launching in Winter 2021)
The exploratory data has also lead to the launch of more robust recruiting term and work term experience surveys in Fall 2019. Responses are collected and monitored termly and are reported on an annual basis.
