Perspectives from the Technical University of Munich

Many universities in the US have what are called co-op programs, especially for engineering students. After finishing a complete first year, the student alternates between one semester on campus and one semester on-site as a full time employee with the participating company. They will usually also attend university classes in the summer to make sure it doesn’t take too long to graduate.

My understanding is that this is more common in the middle of the US rather than the coastal schools.

My sister did this for chemical engineering while at Purdue. Each semester on site was at a different chemical plant around the US, for a major international corporation. Graduated with zero debt and a long list of companies that wanted to recruit her given the extensive experience.

But anyway, the mechanics of it is that the university registers you for a “course” during your time away that allows you to maintain your full-time status as far as the federal government is concerned. That’s the issue - the way things work, it’s really bad to lose official full-time status.