Assessment

At the end of each semester/work term, my company gathers all the co-op students and their supervisors for a conference. For this very important day, everybody travels to the corporate office in order to report on their work activities. The final presentation offered a wonderful opportunity to impress all the chief supervisors across the system. Do I need to mention how much stress this PowerPoint caused?

The co-ops were expected to share their experience and lessons learned to the whole group for a gruesome fifteen minutes. The next work placement is dependent upon this presentation and evaluation by the supervisor. The supervisors also offered creative criticism for improvement. The conference was especially helpful for us, because we were also exposed to other sections of the company.

The company did assess a large expense for hosting the whole group. But the value of the conference is priceless to them. They learn which co-ops will benefit the company upon graduation. Also, the supervisors are held accountable for giving valuable and challenging work assignments to the co-ops throughout the work term. Therefore, the assessment could be considered an audit of the students’ work and an interview for next semester.