Highly ranked: Purdue’s long-standing strengths in co-op and internship opportunities position it among nation’s best

A senior in chemical engineering at Purdue, Anika Bhoopalam wants to work in semiconductor manufacturing and use her background to introduce groundbreaking innovations — particularly related to solar or other forms of renewable energy — that increase environmental stability.

To advance and enrich her career goals, Bhoopalam completed a pair of internships with semiconductor industry partners: one at chipmaker SkyWater Technology’s Florida facility and another in the Netherlands at ASML, an opportunity to work abroad that arose via Purdue’s Global Engineering Alliance for Research & Education program.

“After I went to SkyWater, it was like, ‘Wow, I really like this. I really like this industry and this work,’” Bhoopalam says. “I found it very fast paced and exciting, and that changed my career path. I still want to work in solar panels, but also in chip manufacturing. And then going to ASML definitely fortified that.”

Bhoopalam is one of hundreds of Purdue students tapping into the university’s reputable internship and co-op program which, for 70 years now, has offered Boilermakers access to a premier professional work experience for landing a job in their career choice after graduation.

For its stellar efforts and years of success with internship and co-op programs, Purdue ranked No. 3 among public universities and No. 6 overall for 2025, according to U.S. News & World Report. Only Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Cincinnati ranked higher than Purdue among the nation’s public institutions. This marks Purdue’s strongest showing since U.S. News & World Report began tracking this category in 2020.  

To gain a competitive advantage over their peers after they graduate, Purdue students can apply through Purdue’s Office of Professional Practice for co-ops, internships or other service-based experiential learning programs, which can include paid full-time jobs that typically last three to 12 months. By the time they graduate, participants can receive up to 22 months of work experience while earning money to pay tuition and living expenses.

“We celebrated more than 2,500 academic co-op and internship work sessions this past academic year, confirming our long-standing mission and commitment to facilitate the experiential education and work-integrated learning for Purdue students,” says Phillip Dunston, director of Purdue’s Office of Professional Practice (OPP) and professor of civil and construction engineering.

“These work-integrated learning experiences — open to all current Boilermakers — are giving our undergraduates an advantage in career readiness with coursework and hands-on learning and training during their time at Purdue.”

Currently, Purdue’s co-op and internship programs work with a stable of 500 active employers, with more than 7,500 students preparing for experiences through programs facilitated by the Office of Professional Practice. Students recorded over 2,500 work experiences last year.

How the university’s co-ops, offered through eight of Purdue’s 10 colleges, are structured now:

• Industry Co-op: three sessions (fall, spring or summer semesters) or two sessions with same employer and a third session with another employer (must be fall or spring semesters).
• Extended Industry Co-op: five sessions with an employer (fall, spring or summer).
• Learning while Working: three sessions of a 12-month stint, or four semesters of part-time work and two summers full-time. Students complete academic credits either in-person or online while working.
• Graduate Co-op: two to three sessions with the same employer completed after the first semester of graduate studies.

During the 2024-25 school year, Purdue’s storied Office of Professional Practice engaged 25,184 students through co-op fairs, employer information sessions, professional practice courses, workshops and other activities, partnering with over 400 employers offering work-integrated learning experiences. Apart from domestic co-op and internship experiences, OPP’s Global Engineering Alliance for Research & Education program prepared students who studied and worked abroad in 19 countries around the world.

In addition, OPP funded 38 student summer internships for Indiana startups and early-stage companies, helping boost economic growth and workforce development in Purdue’s home state. OPP’s Milestones technical skills courses also awarded 743 students with hands-on learning opportunities and a micro-certificate/digital badge in engineering technical and leadership skills.

“And we’ve been well supported by the university to support the impressive growth we continue to see in our programs, stemming from the increased flexibility that has given our students even greater access,” Dunston says.

With input from students and industry, Purdue in recent years streamlined its co-op programs, says Jenny Strickland, associate director of cooperative education and career readiness for Purdue.

The goal, she says, was to make them more flexible so students can build deeper relationships with their prospective employer, work on more and impactful projects, and gain increased responsibilities in their experience over time. Purdue also eliminated the $400 one-time fee for university-sponsored internships. Purdue also eliminated the fee formerly associated with registering for a zero-credit course while on a work experience, which has increased the number of students self-reporting their work experiences.

“The catalyst for the changes was flexibility. It clearly has worked, and other universities are taking notice, making similar changes to their programs,” Strickland says. “Perception matters.”

Boosting interest in the programs: In 2024 Purdue established annual co-op and internship programs students of the year awards, qualifying the students for a $1,000 award and eligibility in a national award by the American Society for Engineering Education’s Cooperative & Experiential Education Division:

• 2024 Co-op Student of the Year: Thendral Kamal, an aeronautics and astronautics student who completed her co-op at Delta Air Lines
• 2024 Intern of the Year: Jason Packard, a chemical engineering student who completed an internship at NASA

By the time Purdue finance and accounting major Adam Jaynes graduates, the Zionsville native will have had at least three internships with major investment firms, paving the way for a planned career in financial services when he graduates in 2028.

“My internship experiences have shaped my development in ways that classroom learning alone never could,” says Jaynes, a sophomore in Purdue’s Mitch Daniels School of Business. “Altogether, these internships have given me a practical foundation, a strong network and a clearer sense of the career path I want to build. They’ve made the transition from the classroom to the finance industry feel not just achievable — but exciting.”

Recent Purdue graduate Ben O’Brien hopes to influence adoption rates of electric transportation by pairing technical knowledge gained as a Boilermaker civil engineering student and policy analysis conducted while simultaneously majoring in political science.

A key step toward that: In summer 2024, he completed an internship with the Washington (D.C.) Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, working on a project focused on the charging infrastructure needed to accommodate electric buses. O’Brien is now a grad student in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois.

“Between challenging coursework, leadership with the Purdue student chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and nearly four years of undergraduate research, Purdue has equipped me with an interdisciplinary toolbox: the technical traffic and planning knowledge needed to build stronger transportation systems, and the social knowledge and soft skills needed to ground these designs in communities’ needs,” O’Brien says.

For Jaynes, his internship experiences started as a summer analyst at Integrity Fiber last summer and then as a private equity investment analyst this fall for Headwaters Growth Partners — while also taking a full semester of classes in the Daniels School of Business. Next summer, he’s scheduled to intern as an investment analyst for Valeo Financial Advisors.

“Getting an internship after freshman year isn’t typical, and it takes a lot of deliberate networking and persistence, but it’s absolutely worth the effort. That first opportunity opened more doors than I ever expected. These experiences helped me figure out what direction within finance I want to pursue. I’ve now worked across multiple areas: corporate finance, private equity, and this upcoming summer at Valeo I’ll focus on investment research.”

Key, according to Jaynes, was the emphasis he placed on networking and in building genuine relationships. And networking, he adds, isn’t just about asking someone for a job.

“It’s about being genuinely interested in their story, asking thoughtful questions and learning how they got to where they are,” he says. “Every opportunity I’ve had can be traced back to relationships — often sparked by one conversation. Be curious. Be willing to step outside your comfort zone. Talk to people you meet, whether it’s at an event, on the bus or in line for coffee. You never know who might open a door for you.

“Be a sponge, stay curious, build relationships and don’t be afraid to put yourself out there,” he adds. “The best opportunities usually come from one simple conversation.”