Experiential Learning at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Four students work together on a design project

Mission: The Experiential Learning Team provides overall support to students engaged in 
experiential learning opportunities. Serving as a bridge between students’ academic preparation and 
their career outcome, through constant communication, we empower students to discover and take 
charge of their long-term career trajectory.


What We Do: We are student, employer, and campus-facing. We strive to help students navigate 
experiential learning opportunities while working with internal and external constituents to ensure 
these opportunities exist and continue to grow.

Experiential Learning

  • Dawn Cairns-Weaver - Associate Director of Experiential Learning - Email: cairnd@rpi.edu
  • Emily Nicholson - Assistant Director of Experiential Learning Email: nichoe3@rpi.edu
  • Stephanie Perry - Experiential Learning Program Assistant - Email: perrys2@rpi.edu

You are about to embark on an exciting journey that will lead to new paths in your career development. Along the way, you will cultivate critical technical and leadership skills, meet great professionals, and learn new things about yourself. We are very pleased to welcome you as a new “co-op,” “intern” and/or “Arch Away” student! 

This Experiential Learning Guide is an important reference for you; it contains important information, so please refer to it often while you are away!

The Arch, Co-op, and Internship

Experiential Learning Highlights ‘23-’24

Fall 2023

158 Total Students, 124 Arch, 34 Non-Arch Co-op

Spring 2024

177 Total Students, 144 Arch, 33 Non-Arch Co-op

Summer 2024

801 Total Students, 728 Arch, 73 Non-Arch Co-op

Total for AY ‘23-24

1136 Assignments

Away Semester & Co-Op Registrations

Thanks to our 821 Employer Partners!
Top employers AY 2023 – 2024:

  • Regeneron – 27
  • GE – 14 (Divisions - Aviation, Gas & Energy, Global Research, Vernova)
  • NYS – 14 (Departments - IT, DOT, DEC and Attorney General’s Office)
  • General Dynamics – 11
  • GlobalFoundries – 10
  • Johnson & Johnson – 10
  • Lockheed Martin – 8
  • NASA – 7 (Houston, TX/ Huntsville, AL/Mountain View, CA/Hampton, VA)
  • SABIC – 6
  • Western Digital – 6

Notable Employers:

Amazon, Boeing, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Capital One, Corning, General Motors, Google, Insulet, JP Morgan Chase, MathWorks, MIT Lincoln Labs, Moog, NRC, Pfizer

Student/Employer Feedback

Fall ‘23

Employer: “Our RPI student has been a great addition to our Co-op program. Eager to learn our products and development projects.

Great personality, and always willing to help the team!”

Student: “My experience here significantly surpassed my expectations. I truly do feel like I learned an incredible amount about myself and my career path. Beyond a multitude of technical skills, I learned where I see myself in industry.”

Spring ‘24

Employer: “Our RPI Student has been a fantastic intern - he has shown a lot of curiosity and Self-initiative in the work environment! He a very smart thinker and quick and proficient!”

 

Student: “My experience can be summed up as an extremely pleasant surprise, that taught me a lot about a potential career branch that did not have that big of a focus in my classes, and made me aware of a whole industry I otherwise would have not known much about.”

Summer ‘24

Student: “I think that the RPI Co-op program is fantastic for real-world experience. I got to go farther in depth into my projects than I would have if I were only a summer intern. Likewise, this gave me a chance to connect many things that I’ve learned in my classes to the real world. I was able to draw new connections to class material that enhanced my understanding of materials science.”

Student: “I think that the RPI Co-op program is fantastic for real-world experience. I got to go farther in depth into my projects than I would have if I were only a summer intern. Likewise, this gave me a chance to connect many things that I’ve learned in my classes to the real world. I was able to draw new connections to class material that enhanced my understanding of materials science.”

Summer '24

Employer: “Our RPI student is a fantastic addition to our office this summer. Any firm will be lucky to hire her upon graduation (maybe she'll consider us?!)! RPI School of Architecture continues to produce logical, curious, hardworking, inventive problem-solvers. She has a can-do attitude, is professional, and asks excellent questions. I love questions!! Where she doesn't know our software, she is eager to learn and is a quick study - this has been no trouble at all. I hope she had fun and learned a lot - she is GREAT!”

Employer: “Our RPI student was a delightful surprise. He came in with an important understanding of systems building. When he encountered technology he wasn't familiar he did a good job of independently learning the technology. He is much more social and comfortable in meetings than his peers. When he ran into issues he would take it upon himself to reach out to employees or AWS support for help.

Overall, our student has the qualities that will make him a successful software developer.”

Employer: “Our RPI student has displayed above average ability to accomplish tasks using his resources. As a startup we have very little availability to hold the hands of our interns, we have been exploring AI and voice automation and needed an ambitious intern to take this on this new technology and see how we can use it in the field. He has been excellent at taking on the work and completing training on his own and providing useful reporting during our meetings. We really appreciate our student and hope to work with him in the future on other projects and opportunities.”

Employer: “Our RPI student is a pleasure to work with. He quickly familiarized himself with the project details and background information. He works diligently to align his efforts efficiently in order to achieve the project objectives. He works very well autonomously, without requiring much oversight, but asks relevant questions when he reaches critical technical and conceptual decision points that he feels would benefit from interaction with leadership. He's technically proficient, and learns what he does not already know in order to overcome technical obstacles. His creative thinking process is advanced in comparison with other interns we've had, and he gets along with everyone very nicely.”

Employer: “Our RPI student has gone above and beyond in his internship. He is diligent and detail orientated with every project he has been given. Our student takes every opportunity to learn how the company operates and very rapidly became a crucial member of the team. In his short time here, our student has been able to integrate into our team and is owning projects that will fundamentally shape how we do business.”

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