Applying to Co-Ops While Abroad

I am a sophomore entrepreneurship major in the 5 year, 3 coop program. My first coop is in Spring and Summer of 2022. The coop job search process is divided into 3 rounds, A, B, and C. A round coop job listings were open the weekend of Halloween. I only had from October 29th to November 2nd to look at jobs and apply for them. I was away in Florence for the weekend but I brought my laptop with me so that I could apply while there. I was overly ambitious about how much free time I would have over the weekend. I ended up saving a bunch of coop jobs to my “cart” and didn’t actually apply to them until I got back to Rome on Monday. I ended up applying to 27 jobs of 35 I was allowed to sign up for.

2 of them reached out to me the following week to set up a time to interview. Drexel’s coop interviews are typically done in person, even in the world of COVID, so I had to ensure that my interview would be online since I cannot go to one in person.

On the 15th, I found out about the rest of the jobs I applied for. I got a total of 13 interviews. This past week I had both of the first 2 interviews. The first one was actually for a position with Drexel Housing and Residence Life. I ended up having to do my interview at 9pm because it was 3pm EST. There aren’t many empty places in our apartment where I could got to do the interview so I ended up asking my roommate Lydia if I could use our bedroom for the interview. When I went into my room to make sure everything was ready to go, our bedroom light didn’t work. I ended up switching out the bulb with one that was in the cleaning closet and was all set. As soon as my interview over zoom started, our Wi-Fi stopped working. We’ve all had issues with our apartment Wi-Fi in the past but I hadn’t had issues in a while and they were usually only when I first turned on my laptop. I left the meeting and signed into the meeting through my phone so I could just use data. I explained what happened to the interviews and apologized then I continued with the interview.

My next interview was the following day at 6pm (12pm EST). This was the interview that was supposed to be in person but I had to request it be moved online. At this point, I didn’t want to take the chance that my wifi would have problems so I just started by doing this interview on my phone.

I am in the process of reaching out to and scheduling interviews with the 11 other companies. While I am grateful for both the opportunity to study abroad and to apply for coop, it has been difficult to manage from another country in addition to managing school work.

This past week, I had a lot of assignments at school because we are on break for the whole week of Thanksgiving. AUR normally has a fall break earlier on in the semester but a lot of study abroad students were unable to get visas to come here so they can only stay for 90 days (I have a visa for 112 days). So AUR has moved classes online from the time we get back from break to December 15th when we leave. That being said, teachers who have students with visas, are allowed to continue classes in person. This is what my Italian class is doing. I plan to do a lot of stuff in Rome during this time since I can’t take a trip outside of the area.

A Message from the Office of Global Engagement:

The safety and security of Drexel students is a priority for the University. As part of the efforts to support Drexel students that are studying abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Office of Global Engagement has conducted a rigorous review of programming and provided additional support to participating students with customized pre-departure orientations and regular check-ins during the required self-isolation period and the term.