Drexel Co-ops by College

Sydney Arroyo, a Westphal undergraduate student who completed a co-op at "Saturday Night Live."

When it comes to co-op, Drexel has one of the oldest and most expansive university programs in the world.

In total, 98.2% of eligible undergraduate students find co-op placement at Drexel, whether it’s in Philadelphia, across the country or around the world.

Here are some numbers and student examples by college that show why the program is one of the best parts of attending Drexel:

Center for Hospitality & Sport Management

– 98.9 percent of Drexel students in the Center for Hospitality & Sport Management were employed on co-op in 2013-14.

– Hospitality students Kiki Liu and Zachary Petera were an influential part of a team planning the University City location of the AKA Hotel Residences chain, which will open AKA University City at Cira Centre South in late 2016. They also worked at AKA Rittenhouse Square as resident services associate interns as a part of a co-op partnership between Drexel and Korman Communities. Perera and Liu were chosen by Professor Jonathan Deutsch, PhD, for the opportunity with the extended-stay luxury hotel.

– Culinary arts student Ally Zeitz made some serious dough on co-op at High Street on Market, a celebrated restaurant in Old City. Bon Appetit magazine named it the second-best new restaurant in the country during her tenure there, citing the restaurant’s bread, which Zeitz worked almost exclusively on. Zeitz continued to work part-time at the restaurant after her co-op finished, and she accepted a full-time position upon graduating from Drexel in 2014.

College of Arts and Sciences

– 98.2 percent of Drexel students in the College of Arts and Sciences were employed on co-op in 2013-14.

– As a communications student, Mollie Snyder traveled to Beijing to work at LifeStyle Magazine, the leading bilingual Chinese publication focused on hospitality, architecture, design, fashion and travel. Initially hired as an editorial intern, Snyder moved up the ranks to an editor position, where she wrote the publication’s six to 10-page hospitality features, covers fashion and design news for print and online stories, and manages the magazine’s social media profile.

– Matthew Parsons, a physics student, wasn’t just the only employee writing code to predict plasma disruptions at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) during his third co-op, he was, and still is, the only computational physicist in the U.S. doing that type of research. He completed the co-op at PPPL, and will continue working at the laboratory after graduation on a one-year research appointment.

College of Computing & Informatics

– 98.4 percent of Drexel students in the College of Computing & Informatics were employed on co-op in 2013-14.

– Paritosh Gupta, a pre-junior computer science major, designed an award-winning virtual reality game, Rock, Paper, Scissors, Fight Club, while on co-op as a labs technology intern at A&G Labs, the innovation unit of local ad agency Allen & Gerritsen. The “Fight Club”-inspired version of the classic schoolyard game won first place in Leap Motion’s Hands On VR Challenge, a competition designed to push the limits for virtual reality limits, and can be played in real-time by two players anywhere in the world with Oculus Rift and a Leap Motion controller.

College of Engineering

– 97.5 percent of Drexel students in the College of Engineering were employed on co-op in 2013-14.

– Emily Ballantyne, a mechanical engineering major, travelled over 8,000 miles to conduct her second co-op in Santiago, Chile. Whenever she wasn’t mapping out the lungs using computational modeling at a research laboratory, Ballantyne blogged about her adventures in her new city and in neighboring countries.

– Andrew Carver, a materials science and engineering major, found a co-op that combined his love of electric cars and his professional and educational experiences. As a co-op at Tesla Motors, he worked closely with dozens of other student engineers to conduct data analysis, testing designs in both an office and the factory floor of the influential car company.

College of Nursing & Health Professions

– 99.5 percent of Drexel students in the College of Nursing & Health Professions were employed on co-op in 2013-14.

– Nursing student Emily-Ann Ruedemann worked as a nurse co-op in the intermediate cardiac care unit at Jefferson University Hospital, an experience she was prepped for during her previous co-op in the pediatric intensive care unit at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. At Jefferson, she was responsible for the care of eight to 11 patients, which meant doing everything from taking vital signs to assisting patients with their everyday needs and obtaining electrocardiograms (EKGs).

LeBow College of Business

– 98.1 percent of Drexel students in the LeBow College of Business were employed on co-op in 2013-14.

– The new Saxbys Coffee on Drexel’s campus is one of the coolest, and busiest, hangout spots at Drexel, thanks to Meghan Regan, a marketing major, and Kelsey Goslin, an entrepreneurship and management major. The business students completed co-ops at Saxbys Coffee as the managers of the first-ever student-run Saxbys. They were in charge of running the chain’s location like any other manager, with Regan handling the duties before the launch, and Goslin took over as the co-op running the store when it opened.

– As part of their co-op at the WesGold Fellows Program, students Myckell White, an accounting and finance major, and Avery Martin-Chadwick, a communications student, taught local high school students about financial awareness and management, college planning and career development. Jabari Jones, a finance and legal studies student, used his co-op with the West Philadelphia Financial Services Institution to develop the fellowship.School of

School of Biomedical Engineering

– 99.4 percent of Drexel students in the School of Biomedical Engineering were employed on co-op in 2013-14.

– Biomedical engineering student Julie Speer accepted a co-op position as a research assistant in Haifa, Israel, alongside other international researchers and students at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (which has been called the MIT of Israel). When she wasn’t completing research on things like the mechanical testing of polymers, cytotoxicity testing and biologically induced corrosion, she took in as many of the sights and sounds of her new home away from home as she could.

School of Education

– 100 percent of Drexel students in the School of Education were employed on co-op in 2013-14.

– School of Education students Gina DiDomenic and Casey Sneider completed co-ops at The Math Forum, the leading online math education community and a unit of Drexel University’s School of Education. They worked with students in classrooms and observed teacher-student interactions while also developing methods for teachers to use in their very own classrooms.

Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design

– 98.7 percent of Drexel students in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design were employed on co-op in 2013-14.

– Photography major Sydney Arroyo landed her dream job as a photography intern at “Saturday Night Live,” the late-night live sketch comedy show she grew up watching with her parents. She assisted the show’s two main photographers to shoot the “bumper” signature photos of hosts and musical guests that are shown after each commercial break, and during the show itself. She also took behind-the-scenes photos during rehearsals, fake commercials and digital shorts.

– Entertainment and arts management student Brett Axler took co-op internships at some of the biggest Philly entertainment centers, working as lead audiovisual engineer for the popular XFINITY Live! complex for one three-month co-op and production and operations manager and audio engineer for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival for another. He’s worked on the field during Philadelphia Eagles home games, walked along the 6abc Thanksgiving Day Parade, heard live music at some of the biggest concerts on and off campus and attended almost every performance at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival two years in a row.