MECOP: The Internship Program Standard

MECOP: The Internship Program Standard

Written by: Larry Martin

Introduction

This article is written from my perspective as MECOP Chair emeritus during what I consider the foundational growth period of the program. I have attempted to be as accurate as possible regarding dates and values, but their accuracy is not guaranteed.

The Multiple Engineering Co-Op (MECOP*) Program will be described from a high-level view including its historic timeline from 1978 to 2000. My goal is to provide some insight and understanding, and perhaps an appreciation for this unique and highly successful internship program.

Note: ( * ) The term "MECOP" will refer to the MECOP Program. It will also refer to the combined MECOP and CECOP programs unless otherwise described. ( ** ) The term "Customer" or "customer" includes customers from the region's industrial base, consulting firms, utilities, and government agencies.

MECOP Mission Statement

Enhance and expand an industry-driven engineering cooperative program through Oregon universities, which is of the highest quality and meets the needs of Pacific Northwest industries by providing excellent real-world experience for students. We value our partnerships with participating schools and recognize the importance of work experience in becoming an engineer.

General Program Description

MECOP is a university-level internship program with the goal to enhance the education of selected university students through career-relevant and paid six-month working internships through an active customer**-university partnership.

The program is based in Oregon and & Southwest Washington and is one of the very best in the US. During 2019, the program placed over 700 competitively selected juniors and seniors into highly relevant working internships with nearly 140 customers. MECOP, now in its 42nd year, is financed nearly entirely from its customer base and is a proven highly efficient & successful internship model.

The strength of MECOP stems from its diversity of customer sizes and types. Sizes range from small entrepreneurial shops to large mega corporations. Customer types include Aerospace, High Tech / Electronics, Ground Transportation, Metals, Sporting Goods, Wood Products, Food Processing, Utilities, Consulting Firms, Government Agencies, Software Development, and others.

MECOP is inspired, formed, funded, and actively directed by the customer. The universities’ role is to provide student administration & advising, facilities
support, and help coordinate the program. Students are selected from a pool of applicants and then placed into two different paid, six-month long, career relevant working internships. The first internship occurs during the MECOP student’s Junior year with a MECOP company and then with a different MECOP
company during their Senior year.

MECOP utilizes a customer-pull strategy and is unique in the sense that it strives to simultaneously enhance the student’s experiential learning experience while providing the customer with the highest-level intern and ultimately the highest level professional employee at the lowest possible cost.

Because of the customer’s funding and active leadership role, MECOP places hundreds of interns with hundreds of customers from an applicant pool of
thousands of students from a few universities; with only a full-time staff of 4. MECOP is truly a “Blue-Ocean” internship program, supplying high quality interns to its partner customers at a very low cost.

Historic Timeline of Foundational Growth

In 1978, a small group of visionaries from Oregon’s industrial community began a 42 year partnership with Oregon’s higher education system that flourishes today.

It was 1977 and Oregon State University (OSU) had recently dropped several hands-on courses in favor of more cerebral instruction. Oregon industry was still
largely dependent on wood products but included other vibrant sectors including Aerospace, Metals, Transportation, Medical, and Food Products and was on the cusp of what was to include a dominate high-tech sector.

These visionaries were members of the Manufacturing Engineering Advisory Board and believed OSU was not able to adequately graduate work-ready
engineers into Oregon’s industry base, and so created an internship program founded on a customer-pull strategy. Industry would pay the intern’s salary and
primarily fund the program for two six-month (two-term) internships. A part-time OSU Coordinator would select the students and administer the program. Although some of the initial program structure has changed since that time, the core precepts and concepts have remained the same.

In 1980, seven interns from OSU’s Industrial Manufacturing Engineering (IME) Department were placed with seven customers. During this time, the MECOP
acronym stood for, “Manufacturing Engineering Co-Op” Program. During the early 1980’s, MECOP grew toward twenty customers, representing a wide range of industry sectors. IME students applied to MECOP in a college recognized “Competitive Option” and were selected and then placed into six month, paid, relevant working internships by a board comprised of the industry executives from the participating customers. Enough customers were now participating that industry-led committees were formed and funded to facilitate program efficiency. In 1988 the Operations, Student Support, and University Support sub-committees were created.

As MECOP continued to add customers, it became apparent that demand existed for engineering disciplines in addition to IME. During the early 1990’s, MECOP expanded from the department level and became a College of Engineering (COE) program. The MECOP acronym was now, “Multiple Engineering Co-Op Program and five additional engineering disciplines were added. The additional disciplines were: Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Engineering. MECOP was now in position to ride the crest of the burgeoning electronics
industry in Oregon and Southwest Washington while continuing to meet the needs of the other important manufacturing sectors.

By 1996 MECOP totaled 41 customers & 7 engineering disciplines and placed 148 interns. In 1997, Environmental Engineering and Civil Engineering were added. The company total was now 42 and 164 MECOP students were placed.

Increasing demand for web-based communication, computer-aided shop floor control and the threat of Y2K created a need for a discipline outside the
manufacturing core competency. So, in 1998, MECOP expanded into OSU’s College of Business (COB) and placed 21 Business Information Systems (BIS)
students.

By 2000, MECOP totaled 60 customers, placing 280 student interns from 10 COE/COB disciplines.

During the late 1990s total demand for MECOP student interns increased beyond the ability of OSU to completely fill the need. Therefore, Portland State University was added in 1998 and Oregon Institute of Technology was added in 2002. Recently, the University of Portland was added to MECOP, bringing the total number of partner universities to 4.

The years of foundational growth finally came to an end but not before the Civil Engineering Co-Op Board (CECOP) was created in 1998 from the parent MECOP. CECOP is primarily comprised of consulting firms, utilities, and government agencies. In 2016, 92 Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering interns disciplines from either the individual MECOP or CECOP programs.

By 2019, the MECOP included nearly 140 customers placing over 700 selected student interns from 17 COE/COB disciplines (1), and 4 universities.

(1) The COB disciplines are Business Information Systems, Project Management, Marketing, and Accounting.

The Cornerstone of Mutual Trust

The true test of quality is the extent to which it is depended on for survival. In business scenarios, product quality is assumed, and poor quality can have a
devastating effect on a company’s business. Therefore, businesses work hard to ensure that a high standard of product quality is continuously improved.

MECOP’s dependence on quality is woven throughout the program and is best reflected in how MECOP interns are placed into their internships. Hundreds of customers place hundreds of MECOP interns, via lottery. Customers pick their interns based on their random lottery pick and students are placed accordingly. Customers have no direct choice over which intern they can place and the MECOP intern has no direct choice over their internship location. It was always amazing to me how well this process efficiently matches customers and interns. Customers still pick the students they need and MECOP interns are still placed into projects that fit their college major and work interest.

MECOP’s quality measures must be consistently optimal for the lottery process to mutually benefit both customer and intern. The lottery process has been used throughout MECOP’s growth and works only because of the program’s high quality standard. It is also one of the primary reasons why hundreds of MECOP customers are willing to commit funding and actively participate to ensure that MECOP’s high quality is supported and continuously improved.

The details of the lottery process are beyond the scope of this article.

Win - Win - Win

One of our past MECOP Chairs compared MECOP to a three-legged stool: Students, University, and Customer. “Give and Take” from all three legs is woven
throughout MECOP’s form and function, providing the key structural elements forthe continued success of this high-quality program. Each of the three “legs” gives up some of their personal interests for the greater good. Each then receives benefits equaling more than what they gave.

Student

Screened Student Applicants
COE and COB students apply to MECOP during the Winter Term of their sophomore year. The pool of applicants is then screened by a panel of
representatives from the customer partners who select the top candidates from each discipline. This “Selection Process” helps guarantee a high quality intern for the customer partners.

Paid Internships
The “Placement Process” is designed around a lottery system (previously described) and the MECOP interns have no choice to which customer they will be
placed. They essentially give up their freedom to directly apply to these customers for their internships. The first internship occurs during the MECOP
student’s junior year and the second internship occurs during their senior year. The pay scale is generally based on the entry-level position of the interning
customer.

Variety of Internships
A major MECOP goal is to optimize the experiential learning process of the interns by providing them a diversified professional work experience. Therefore, they are exposed to two different customer types, sizes, and project sets. The Placement Process is designed to provide relevant internships no matter the customer.

Increased Customer-Student Visibility
Most university students do not have an adequate understanding of the career employment opportunities within the hiring base of customers. Whereas the
larger and well-known corporations are visible as potential hiring opportunities, hundreds of small to medium customers provide incredible career opportunities but are not known to the university student. MECOP is the magnifier that efficiently increases their visibility to the population of MECOP students.

Extra Time Investment Leading to Superior Hiring Opportunities
The two internships are each six-months in length and therefore the MECOP student will often need to commit additional time in school to graduate.
However, in addition to earning a year’s total entry-level salary, they benefit from having two one-term breaks from the rigors of their college curriculum. Most importantly, they will be able to list their two internships on their employment resume. In many cases, a senior MECOP student has accepted a permanent position with one of the MECOP customers prior to graduation.

University

University’s Vital Role
Universities play a vital role in providing the educational structure and coordinating support for the students and program. Campus facilities are made
available for major MECOP events and are supported by university staff. Most importantly, the colleges have assigned advisors to help their students navigate the MECOP application process and post student-selection activities. They also help promote the program to their student population.

Course adjustments
A major contribution to MECOP’s success came when certain departments within the College of Engineering modified their course curriculum to run in parallel with their student’s internship schedule. As a result, engineering interns in these departments were not penalized from missing two terms due to their internships.

Promotional Opportunities
Whether pulled by the customer or pushed by the university, an internship program is normally associated with its college or university. These institutions
can rightfully promote their association with highly successful internship programs to help recruit exceptional students. The MECOP university partners do
the same.

Increased Resources
Universities are always in need of private financial, capital, and in-kind investment. An active base of MECOP customers, loyal to their partner universities, are more likely to be aware of the resource need. There is little doubt that substantial financial, capital, and in-kind contributions come from this growing base of customers.

Customer

Customer Applicant Screening
University students are competitively screened into MECOP. Likewise, customers must formally apply and then screened to help ensure that they can provide safe and meaningful internships. Plant & campus tours are often conducted by MECOP executive staff and they must be convinced that an applicant customer has a safe & dynamic relevant work environment, can provide quality mentoring, is financially stable, and has the direct support from their senior executives.

Student Experiential Learning Emphasis
A key differentiation of MECOP compared to other internship programs is its emphasis for providing a robust experiential learning experience for its students over the immediate hiring needs of the customer partners. Whereas many internships require the student to repeat their internship with the same
customer, a MECOP customer will only intern the same MECOP student once.

The interesting and positive outcome from this policy is that MECOP customers can now hire professional employees with a diverse work experience gained from their two internships who can bring a wider range of perspective, solutions, and value than would have been possible from a two-time internship with the same customer.

Increased Customer-Student Visibility
Of the list of current MECOP customers, nearly 85% placed 4 or fewer interns, whereas only 5% placed 10 or more interns. These percentages reflect an
internship program that benefits the small to medium customers as well as the larger corporations. Oregon is a relatively rural state and home to many small to medium sized customers. Prior to MECOP, these customers lacked visibility and access to the best engineering and business students. As a result, many graduates started their career paths outside of the state.

MECOP is now the magnet pulling these customers into the same orbit as the best engineering and business students. Smaller customers with great career path opportunities are now visible to the types of professional employees they need to grow their business. MECOP’s financial costs are borne by the entire set of customers and so the individual cost per customer to access hundreds of potential employees is comparatively minimal.

Completed Customer-Relevant Projects
Six-month long internships give the interning customer a great opportunity to assign complex projects that may require a lengthy setup time and learning curve before meaningful progress can be accomplished. The extended length of time that the MECOP intern is working allows the customer to complete one or more high-valued projects that are nearly impossible to accomplish with a three-month internship.

Enhancing the Hiring Process
The six-month internship period allows the customer a clear view of the MECOP intern’s potential as a permanent employee. The MECOP intern also has the
same six-month period to experience the work environment, organization culture, leadership, and financial strength of the company. Once the six-month internship has competed, and the customer & MECOP intern are interested in pursuing a long-term permanent employment relationship, the hiring decision becomes easy. Attaining this mutual fit can also lead to lower employee turnover.

B2B Opportunities
The hundreds of large, medium, and small MECOP customers representing a very wide range of types, markets, and expertise can present significant B2B
opportunities. In some cases, portions of the same value chain (supply chain) are represented and present unique opportunities for dialog and collaboration. The close interaction between the MECOP customers and partner universities further enhances this potential.

In summary

1. MECOP is a unique customer-pulled internship program made possible through a collaborative partnership between customer, university, and student.
2. The program began in 1978 and seven selected Manufacturing Engineering students were placed in 1980 into work-relevant internships with seven
customers. (By 2000, the program had grown to 280 interns with 60 customers | By 2019 the program has grown to 710 interns with nearly 140 customers)
3. The program is a Win-Win-Win for all three legs of the MECOP Stool. (Student: Two paid six-month internships with two different customers | University: Increased promotional and resource opportunities | Customer: Competed customer-relevant projects, access to a large pool of competititvely-selected students, long-term view of potential applicants, and B2B opportunities)
4. MECOP depends on its total quality to fill the wide variety of needs of its students, universities, and customers. (Program systems are in place to maintain or continuously improve the high quality standards of student, university, and customer)
5. “Give and Take” is woven throughout MECOP’s form and function, providing the key structural elements for continued success of this high quality program. (Each of the three “legs” must give up some of their personal interests for the greater good. Each then receives benefits equaling more than they gave)
6. MECOP has grown from 7 internships in 1980 to over 700 internships in 2019 but is still utilizing the basic program model developed in 1978 and I expect that the same roadmap will be used as the program continues to grow.

In Closing

The purpose of the article to give the reader a high-level view of MECOP. Understandably, many details including organizational structure, major events,
and financial commitments are not included.

Additional information is available by visiting the MECOP website or calling the office at (541) 360-0401.

Larry Martin
[email protected]
https://www.linkedin.com/in/larry-martin-15604714