Phegan
08-27-2005, 03:22 AM
My Current Situation:
I am very close to obtaining my Bachelors of Science in Computer Science from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. Though I have been cornered into a “catch 22.” To fully understand my situation I must go back to my senior year, when I was to complete a Co-op.
I was having a large amount of trouble finding a co-op for numerous reasons, I have no professional experience, the help that Wentworth provided was not very helpful at all and my co-op advisor was even less help than the school itself. Being a student, I was of course unable to obtain a job full time that would give me experience in the industry, I worked one other co-op that gave me some experience but it was for a period of three months, unfortunately three months is considered nothing for experience in a field looking for 3 years minimum. Wentworth did help in a small amount, but it was very lackluster, they looked over my resume and helped with corrections and content, they have a service called place pro which allows students to look up jobs similar to Monster.com and hotjobs.com, but my co-op advisor had to release my resume to the company, and finally had a binder of random jobs which seemed to have been printed off the internet with no actual contact with the company. My co-op Councilor at the time, Kelly Forde, was even less help. She seemed to know almost nothing about my major and though of it as more of a web design major than a programming and analysis major. I sent her an email asking me to release my resume to many companies from place pro, Kelly mailed me back and told me to make a few small revisions on my resume, which I did and then emailed her back. Over the next two weeks, during the height of the co-op job hunt I looked on place pro numerous times and my resumes were never released. I emailed Kelly asking why they had not been release; I got no response for over a week. So I took matters into my own hands and emailed the provost with my situation hoping that he could help me resolve the situation, well, it seemed to only make matters worse. It turns out Kelly was on vacation during this period, which is all well and good for her, but there were many students depending on her to submit their resumes to jobs which by then had been taken. My school likes to cover up when they are wrong and never admits when a student is right. The provost forwarded my email to Kelly, without sending me any sort of feedback on my situation. I then received a very angry email from Kelly saying that I should have never went over her head and she never received the email I sent saying my revisions had been completed, though it was marked read in my email box. So I was at the point where I had to cut my losses, swallow my pride and work with what I had left. At this point, all of the jobs on place pro had been filled, even though there were only 10 to begin with for a field that had over 100 students looking for co-ops at one time. I decided to completely bite the bullet and set up a meeting with Kelly to sort things out. At the meeting she looked over my resume again (this was the 5th time it had been looked at, they like to look at and correct resumes, and for some reason there was always changes they wanted made even after looking at it 3 times before, on things that they said were okay prior to that revision.) Besides looking at my resume she gave me the nice binder of jobs, the majority of the jobs required 3-5 years experience, which is the reason why I believe they just printed job listings from the Internet, and many of them were over a year to two years old. I took a couple home with me and was going to call the companies. I called a few, some had no answer and others were no longer looking for co-ops. I finally called one company and it seemed to be a match. The agreement was, I would work for them through email, and edit documents on C and C++. I didn’t need to come in for an interview since it was non-profit organization and I would be working completely for free. There was one hitch, the company said, we might not have enough work for you, we might only have a couple hours a week worth, you should clear it first with your school and we will talk to them. I talked with Kelly over the phone and explained the situation and she asked for their information but said it would be should be fine. I gave the information for the company and she spoke to the person who would be in charge of me. The job was approved on both end. Now, I used my hotmail email account for this job, that is an important point that will come up later. I will admit, there was not a lot of work, but this was brought up before the co-op was approved. I completed all the work the company asked for me, and they sent in a good midterm evaluation. The semester ended and I went back to classes. Now I had 3 more semesters of classes to complete, I had to go an extra semester because I came down with mono during one semester and missed the last 4 weeks of classes, but passed 3 out of 5 classes. Half way through my final semester I look at my institutional transcript, I had an incomplete for my second co-op. I went to look for Kelly Forde's email again, but it turns out that she was removed from the computer science students due to complaints, and lack of knowledge. I was then referred to Jennifer Bloom, who was my new advisor; I emailed her asking why I did not pass my second co-op. She said for two reasons, she said the company never sent in a final evaluation, and I did not do enough work for the company, which I do not know how they figured that without getting a final evaluation. So I asked her how I could clear this up, she said I could get back in contact with my company have them resubmit my evaluation and write a petition to get my grade changed. I went on to my hotmail account, which I had not used for almost a year at this point, and all the emails with that company had been deleted due to inactivity. I emailed Jennifer Bloom back asking for the information I gave to Kelly Forde about the company, Kelly never put the company’s information on record, and I only had information from Database International, where I did my first co-op. I had no way to contact the company, I never went into the office, so I have no idea where they were, I had forgot the name of the company over the year and a half where I was done with them, and no longer had the emails. I then met with Jennifer to figure out how we could get this completed for me. She said that there was no way I could get credit for the prior co-op and had to do another one. I had two options 1) do another co-op 2) Find a company that would hire me and have them send in 2 evaluations. I was fine with this, but having finished classes I was no longer a full time student so I needed health insurance, so I began working full time, at my part time job, CVS, to get all the benefits I needed. I began sending out resumes to companies, none of them were looking for co-ops or would hire someone without a completed degree, because I could not receive my degree until I finish my final co-op. I was told that to complete the co-op I would need to do 40 hours over the course of 12-14 weeks, paid or unpaid. With lack of insurance, my student loans about to start being due and need for food, and other bills, I decided that I needed to find a job that paid, since I would still not be considered a full time student while on co-op. After two interviews, and hundreds of resumes sent, I have still not found a job. No one wants someone without a degree, with good reason. I have no received and help from my school, but their only outlets for jobs are Place Pro and “the binder”, and due to past experience with them, I would rather take my chances finding something on my own that is a sure fire job. I have spoken with another student who was on co-op for the summer semester of 2005. I asked her, how many hours a week she does, since she is not paid, she answered 26 hours. I then emailed the Co-op Supervisor with the following email:
From Mike Egan to Maureen Crawford-Hentz
I was just looking for some slight clarification. I have heard two
different things, I have heard that if you are not getting paid for a
co-op that you must for forty hours, from a co-op councilor. Though, I
have spoke with students who are working about 26 hours a week at
their co-op, since it is unpaid. I have completed my class work and
just need a co-op to graduate, therefore my student loans have kicked
in, and I no long am under my parents’ health insurance. If I was able
to work less than 40 hours I would still be able to keep health
insurance from my current job and would still make enough money to pay
my loans. I just wanted to figure out exactly what you are looking
for, if I can not do less than 40 hours, I will have to find a job
that will pay me or will hire me and agree to evaluate me over the
course of the first three months, like I was told I can do by my
current co-op councilor, but if I can work less than 40 hours I can
find a three month co-op that most likely won't pay me, but I will
still remain full time at my current job.
If you would like, I can explain the complete situation why I am doing
my Co-op after completing classes as opposed to fall of my senior
year.
The Response I received was:
From Maureen Crawford-Hentz to Jennifer Bloom, Mike Egan
Hello Mike,
The co-op requirement is 40 hours per week for 12-14 weeks, regardless
of your pay status. If there are people doing part time co-op, I don't
know about it and would love to have their names. Please feel free to
check in with your co-op coordinator if you need additional
clarification.
There are two things that should be noted in these emails. I explained the basics of my situation and asked if she needed more clarification. She gave a very quick answer to my question, and did not touch on my problem one bit, and did not care to find out the rest of my situation. The second thing that should be noted is that she sent the response to my current co-op advisor, which means she must have sent my initial email to her also. This shows that there is no privacy between student and the supervisor when it comes to her employees, which further proves my point that they believe the student, is always wrong, in their eyes.
So puts me into the “Catch 22”. It boils down to a few points. 1) I need a job to get my degree, says my school. 2) I need a degree to get a job, say employers. 3) I need a job that will offer health insurance, and pay enough for me to live. 4) My school requires me to work 40 hours no matter if there is insurance or/and payment or not. 5) I have a full time job that demands 40 hours a week to keep my benefits and pays the bills, but does not fit into my field. 6) For me to work 40 hours unpaid at a job, which may not require a degree would need I would loose my health insurance because there is no way I could work 80 hours in one week and still be efficient at both jobs, be forced to quit my job and have over 300 dollars in student loans go unpaid because I would be making less than 500 dollars a month if I was forced to work only part time, or finally give up food. There are a few solutions to break the catch 22 that I am in, unfortunately, many of them are not allowed by my school or would be tough to get an employer to agree to, hence the catch 22. The first solution would be Wentworth allows me to work less than 40 hours unpaid, or on a long shot, credits me for the initial co-op, which I had completed. The second solution would be an employer hires me full time with benefits without a degree, or allows me to work less than forty hours unpaid while telling my school I did work forty hours allowing me to still be full time at my current job. These solutions are obviously not valid with the rules that are in place, but outside of a fictional world where the pure catch 22 exists, these solutions exist, but would break the rules of either the employer or the school.
What I am asking for, I am not asking for much, I am asking that you understand my situation, and think of other ideas that may allow me to break out of my catch 22. I also ask if you have a solution or know someone who can fix this problem for me, through the board of education, through a civil case, or even just someone who is looking for someone to work for them in the field of computer science, please, Do not be afraid to email me, call me or some how contact me. My name is Mike Egan, my phone number is (617) 640 9537 and my email is [email protected] If you can help me in any way shape or form, please do not hesitate to contact me.
I am very close to obtaining my Bachelors of Science in Computer Science from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. Though I have been cornered into a “catch 22.” To fully understand my situation I must go back to my senior year, when I was to complete a Co-op.
I was having a large amount of trouble finding a co-op for numerous reasons, I have no professional experience, the help that Wentworth provided was not very helpful at all and my co-op advisor was even less help than the school itself. Being a student, I was of course unable to obtain a job full time that would give me experience in the industry, I worked one other co-op that gave me some experience but it was for a period of three months, unfortunately three months is considered nothing for experience in a field looking for 3 years minimum. Wentworth did help in a small amount, but it was very lackluster, they looked over my resume and helped with corrections and content, they have a service called place pro which allows students to look up jobs similar to Monster.com and hotjobs.com, but my co-op advisor had to release my resume to the company, and finally had a binder of random jobs which seemed to have been printed off the internet with no actual contact with the company. My co-op Councilor at the time, Kelly Forde, was even less help. She seemed to know almost nothing about my major and though of it as more of a web design major than a programming and analysis major. I sent her an email asking me to release my resume to many companies from place pro, Kelly mailed me back and told me to make a few small revisions on my resume, which I did and then emailed her back. Over the next two weeks, during the height of the co-op job hunt I looked on place pro numerous times and my resumes were never released. I emailed Kelly asking why they had not been release; I got no response for over a week. So I took matters into my own hands and emailed the provost with my situation hoping that he could help me resolve the situation, well, it seemed to only make matters worse. It turns out Kelly was on vacation during this period, which is all well and good for her, but there were many students depending on her to submit their resumes to jobs which by then had been taken. My school likes to cover up when they are wrong and never admits when a student is right. The provost forwarded my email to Kelly, without sending me any sort of feedback on my situation. I then received a very angry email from Kelly saying that I should have never went over her head and she never received the email I sent saying my revisions had been completed, though it was marked read in my email box. So I was at the point where I had to cut my losses, swallow my pride and work with what I had left. At this point, all of the jobs on place pro had been filled, even though there were only 10 to begin with for a field that had over 100 students looking for co-ops at one time. I decided to completely bite the bullet and set up a meeting with Kelly to sort things out. At the meeting she looked over my resume again (this was the 5th time it had been looked at, they like to look at and correct resumes, and for some reason there was always changes they wanted made even after looking at it 3 times before, on things that they said were okay prior to that revision.) Besides looking at my resume she gave me the nice binder of jobs, the majority of the jobs required 3-5 years experience, which is the reason why I believe they just printed job listings from the Internet, and many of them were over a year to two years old. I took a couple home with me and was going to call the companies. I called a few, some had no answer and others were no longer looking for co-ops. I finally called one company and it seemed to be a match. The agreement was, I would work for them through email, and edit documents on C and C++. I didn’t need to come in for an interview since it was non-profit organization and I would be working completely for free. There was one hitch, the company said, we might not have enough work for you, we might only have a couple hours a week worth, you should clear it first with your school and we will talk to them. I talked with Kelly over the phone and explained the situation and she asked for their information but said it would be should be fine. I gave the information for the company and she spoke to the person who would be in charge of me. The job was approved on both end. Now, I used my hotmail email account for this job, that is an important point that will come up later. I will admit, there was not a lot of work, but this was brought up before the co-op was approved. I completed all the work the company asked for me, and they sent in a good midterm evaluation. The semester ended and I went back to classes. Now I had 3 more semesters of classes to complete, I had to go an extra semester because I came down with mono during one semester and missed the last 4 weeks of classes, but passed 3 out of 5 classes. Half way through my final semester I look at my institutional transcript, I had an incomplete for my second co-op. I went to look for Kelly Forde's email again, but it turns out that she was removed from the computer science students due to complaints, and lack of knowledge. I was then referred to Jennifer Bloom, who was my new advisor; I emailed her asking why I did not pass my second co-op. She said for two reasons, she said the company never sent in a final evaluation, and I did not do enough work for the company, which I do not know how they figured that without getting a final evaluation. So I asked her how I could clear this up, she said I could get back in contact with my company have them resubmit my evaluation and write a petition to get my grade changed. I went on to my hotmail account, which I had not used for almost a year at this point, and all the emails with that company had been deleted due to inactivity. I emailed Jennifer Bloom back asking for the information I gave to Kelly Forde about the company, Kelly never put the company’s information on record, and I only had information from Database International, where I did my first co-op. I had no way to contact the company, I never went into the office, so I have no idea where they were, I had forgot the name of the company over the year and a half where I was done with them, and no longer had the emails. I then met with Jennifer to figure out how we could get this completed for me. She said that there was no way I could get credit for the prior co-op and had to do another one. I had two options 1) do another co-op 2) Find a company that would hire me and have them send in 2 evaluations. I was fine with this, but having finished classes I was no longer a full time student so I needed health insurance, so I began working full time, at my part time job, CVS, to get all the benefits I needed. I began sending out resumes to companies, none of them were looking for co-ops or would hire someone without a completed degree, because I could not receive my degree until I finish my final co-op. I was told that to complete the co-op I would need to do 40 hours over the course of 12-14 weeks, paid or unpaid. With lack of insurance, my student loans about to start being due and need for food, and other bills, I decided that I needed to find a job that paid, since I would still not be considered a full time student while on co-op. After two interviews, and hundreds of resumes sent, I have still not found a job. No one wants someone without a degree, with good reason. I have no received and help from my school, but their only outlets for jobs are Place Pro and “the binder”, and due to past experience with them, I would rather take my chances finding something on my own that is a sure fire job. I have spoken with another student who was on co-op for the summer semester of 2005. I asked her, how many hours a week she does, since she is not paid, she answered 26 hours. I then emailed the Co-op Supervisor with the following email:
From Mike Egan to Maureen Crawford-Hentz
I was just looking for some slight clarification. I have heard two
different things, I have heard that if you are not getting paid for a
co-op that you must for forty hours, from a co-op councilor. Though, I
have spoke with students who are working about 26 hours a week at
their co-op, since it is unpaid. I have completed my class work and
just need a co-op to graduate, therefore my student loans have kicked
in, and I no long am under my parents’ health insurance. If I was able
to work less than 40 hours I would still be able to keep health
insurance from my current job and would still make enough money to pay
my loans. I just wanted to figure out exactly what you are looking
for, if I can not do less than 40 hours, I will have to find a job
that will pay me or will hire me and agree to evaluate me over the
course of the first three months, like I was told I can do by my
current co-op councilor, but if I can work less than 40 hours I can
find a three month co-op that most likely won't pay me, but I will
still remain full time at my current job.
If you would like, I can explain the complete situation why I am doing
my Co-op after completing classes as opposed to fall of my senior
year.
The Response I received was:
From Maureen Crawford-Hentz to Jennifer Bloom, Mike Egan
Hello Mike,
The co-op requirement is 40 hours per week for 12-14 weeks, regardless
of your pay status. If there are people doing part time co-op, I don't
know about it and would love to have their names. Please feel free to
check in with your co-op coordinator if you need additional
clarification.
There are two things that should be noted in these emails. I explained the basics of my situation and asked if she needed more clarification. She gave a very quick answer to my question, and did not touch on my problem one bit, and did not care to find out the rest of my situation. The second thing that should be noted is that she sent the response to my current co-op advisor, which means she must have sent my initial email to her also. This shows that there is no privacy between student and the supervisor when it comes to her employees, which further proves my point that they believe the student, is always wrong, in their eyes.
So puts me into the “Catch 22”. It boils down to a few points. 1) I need a job to get my degree, says my school. 2) I need a degree to get a job, say employers. 3) I need a job that will offer health insurance, and pay enough for me to live. 4) My school requires me to work 40 hours no matter if there is insurance or/and payment or not. 5) I have a full time job that demands 40 hours a week to keep my benefits and pays the bills, but does not fit into my field. 6) For me to work 40 hours unpaid at a job, which may not require a degree would need I would loose my health insurance because there is no way I could work 80 hours in one week and still be efficient at both jobs, be forced to quit my job and have over 300 dollars in student loans go unpaid because I would be making less than 500 dollars a month if I was forced to work only part time, or finally give up food. There are a few solutions to break the catch 22 that I am in, unfortunately, many of them are not allowed by my school or would be tough to get an employer to agree to, hence the catch 22. The first solution would be Wentworth allows me to work less than 40 hours unpaid, or on a long shot, credits me for the initial co-op, which I had completed. The second solution would be an employer hires me full time with benefits without a degree, or allows me to work less than forty hours unpaid while telling my school I did work forty hours allowing me to still be full time at my current job. These solutions are obviously not valid with the rules that are in place, but outside of a fictional world where the pure catch 22 exists, these solutions exist, but would break the rules of either the employer or the school.
What I am asking for, I am not asking for much, I am asking that you understand my situation, and think of other ideas that may allow me to break out of my catch 22. I also ask if you have a solution or know someone who can fix this problem for me, through the board of education, through a civil case, or even just someone who is looking for someone to work for them in the field of computer science, please, Do not be afraid to email me, call me or some how contact me. My name is Mike Egan, my phone number is (617) 640 9537 and my email is [email protected] If you can help me in any way shape or form, please do not hesitate to contact me.