At Widener, your inside track to a successful career will be paved with outside-the-classroom, real-world experiences – the kind that will set you apart from the crowd.
Co-op is full-time, paid work experience relevant to your major. Our co-op program has a wide network of employers across the Philadelphia region and beyond, so you can work for some top organizations. Some students have gone as far as California for their co-op experience. And many employers extend full-time job offers to co-op students after graduation.
You can choose to participate in 4- or 8-month co-op cycles. Engineering and business majors can choose a combination of both to gain up to 12 months of work experience. Computer science majors can select either a 4-month or 8-month co-op. You have the flexibility to create your own co-op schedule. The table below offers a suggested schedule, depending on the academic year you choose to work:
| Summer | Fall | Spring | |
| Freshman | Study | Study | |
| Sophomore | Study | Work | Study |
| Junior | Study | Study | Work |
| Senior | Work | Study | Study |
While on co-op you do not pay tuition. You can choose to live on campus, at home, or even travel for co-op.
We offer a summer-long professional development series before your first co-op that teaches everything from industry-level Excel training to perfecting those all-important oral and written communication skills.
For more than 30 years, our students have partnered with employers as part of our flexible, supportive co-op program. Widener students are career-ready and well-prepared to make meaningful contributions to any organization. And our professional staff provides support for employers and students throughout the co-op process.
The School of Business Administration celebrated some of its graduating students who already have jobs lined up by holding a T-shirt launching event. The launcher was built by the School of Engineering.
Ijjae Hill will draw on her deep-seated commitment to service and helping others in her new role of student trustee on the Widener Board of Trustees.
The Summer Undergraduate Research & Creative Activities (SURCA) program at Widener can be a foundation for some students to enter prestigious PhD programs and lead research on important topics.
Hear from our students about their co-ops and internships.
Widener has done a really good job preparing me for what hands-on work was going to look like, how I can use my major, and what options I have.
This program gave me the protocol to follow and has taught me how to be a great ultrasound technician. This is the stepping stone to get me there.
“I feel like if I went to a bigger school I wouldn’t have been able to, or felt comfortable enough to, interact with the professors the way I did at Widener.”
Widener has helped me take my academics and what I’ve learned in classes and apply it not just in the Chester community, but to the whole world in general.
Widener helped me to gain a deeper appreciation for science, fall in love with the brain, and to learn what it was like to work in a high-powered, fast-moving academic setting.
I knew that coming to Widener would mean opportunities to meet speakers working in the industry. And, I know that when the time comes, I will be able to turn to them to help find a job.
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