"I first signed up because ... I wanted to take a breather from school and see the real world. You can get really sucked into what my friends and I call 'Cornell World,' and it's important to get away for a little while, to use your knowledge and to see if you really want to do what you're studying to do. It was one of the best decisions I ever made."

Tammy Freeman, a senior majoring in civil engineering, is talking about Cornell's Engineering Cooperative Education Program, or "co-op" program, which offers students the opportunity to get as much as eight months of work experience in a corporate environment during their undergraduate years -- and still graduate in four years. Freeman spent two co-op work terms at Turner Construction Management in Milford, Conn.

The program is grounded in the College of Engineering's goal of preparing students for the lifelong creation of knowledge and of creating solutions to complex real-world problems. And the program provides an opportunity for students to integrate their academic interests with paid work experience -- to put theory into practice -- as well as to gain knowledge and skills that will enhance future coursework.

Most students take a semester's worth of courses during the summer after sophomore year, work during the fall of their junior year, return to campus for spring semester, and rejoin their co-op employer the following summer. Students are on campus for their senior year and graduate on time with nearly eight months of paid work experience.

For Freeman, the hardest thing about co-op was coming back to school. "In school, you focus on the worst-case scenario. When you finish a project, the professor may say, 'By the way, I think your building is about to fall down,' or 'Don't forget about that Category 5 hurricane coming.'"

With that kind of rigor in the classroom, students often find the pace more relaxed in the real world, not to mention having cash flow in the opposite direction -- during work periods, students typically earn more than $3,000 a month as starting salaries.

Originally from Chicago, Freeman began her education as an architect, choosing Cornell because of its No. 1 ranking in architecture and because "I hate hot weather." She later realized that her real interest lay in structural engineering.

"I'm interested in both building and design," says Freeman, who will begin a master's program in structural engineering at Cornell next fall. Structural engineering, she explains, means infrastructure -- what holds things together, what makes things stand up. Because of their responsibility for public safety, civil engineers require a license that takes several years of work under a professional engineer to obtain.

During semesters on campus, Freeman is also a dancer with Uhura Kuumba, a Cornell African modern ballet troupe. She is a member of the National Society for Black Engineers and works with Habitat for Humanity, working with the volunteer organization last year to build trusses for low-income houses in Rochester, N.Y.

At Turner, which employs about 60 Cornell alumni, Freeman worked on school renovations in Connecticut. "I was mainly out in the field, working with engineers and handling scheduling," she says. She also worked on a condominium project in Westchester; during that project she was in the office, working with the purchasing department before construction began. Last summer, Freeman was again out in the field, working on a renovation to a Yale University dorm with the project superintendent.

"People were very impressed with what she [Freeman] was able to do as a co-op," says Sarah Garner, senior cost engineer and one of Freeman's supervisors at Turner. "She knew when to ask questions and when to forge ahead. She was able to manage quite a few tasks at the same time, which is what we do here."

"Tammy's employers at Turner were blown away, not only by her technical knowledge but also by her professionalism," says Sara Xayarath Hernández, assistant director of the engineering college's Office of Diversity Programs in Engineering, who made a routine field visit to Freeman at Turner last fall. "I think Turner's had great experiences overall with Cornell co-ops, but they just raved about Tammy."

And Tammy raves about co-op. "I recommend it to all of the underclass students I know. You get a chance to work in a company in your field and gain life skills, while getting paid and graduating on time. The question they should ask themselves is, why not? No reason. It has been a wonderful experience."

Engineering Co-op:

Cornell's co-op program, established in 1946, is the only one of its kind among Ivy League schools and one of just a few nationwide in which student participation is strictly voluntary. Currently, more than 200 students take co-op jobs, and over the years more than 3,000 Cornell engineering students have participated.

More than 80 organizations, from small entrepreneurial start-ups to large manufacturing firms employing 100,000, participate; most are in the United States but such overseas employers as Sanyo Electric in Osaka, Japan, have also hired Cornell co-ops.

At the beginning of the co-op process, prospective co-op students train with the co-op office, participating in mock networking and interviews and résumé workshops. Christa Downey, who administers the co-op program, says most co-op students make an easy transition from school to work.

"Certainly some areas shock them," she allows. "They already have the technical skills to work in a professional setting, but what they learn during co-op is how to work with other people. I think one thing a lot of them are amazed by is how much free time they have when they're not in school."

By the end of the process, the students are experienced, enriched and highly employable: Between 60 to 80 percent of co-op students receive an offer of full-time work from their co-op employer.

Melanie Bush is a freelance writer in Ithaca; this article was adapted from Cornell Engineering magazine.