The effect of engineering cooperative experience on graduate starting salaries

Abstract

The paper explores the effect of cooperative engineering experience on graduate starting salaries for all civil, industrial, mechanical, and electrical engineering graduates for two consecutive academic years. The primary data (gathered from various sources) were used to conduct 12 major statistical analyses. The tests of significance give rather inconclusive results in terms of a correlation between cooperative experience and the starting salaries of graduates. The strongest relationship existed for industrial engineering graduates, and the weakest relationship emerged for civil engineering majors. The mechanical and electrical graduates ranked second and third, respectively.