[TheIrishThug]

The experience you get at a coop is dependent on a lot of things. Some people work better by themselves others work well in small groups. A position may be great, but if it's not the way you work it will seem bad. This is the hidden advantage of coops, you get to learn things you don't like just as much as you learn things you like.

My first coop was doing electrical planning in buildings. Within two months I had decided that this was not what I wanted as a career. Then they started to give me busy work, if they gave me work at all. This was not a normal coop, this office didn't seem to differentiate between random summer interns and a 6 month coop position.

My second was for a group that did work with asic and fpga layouts. They had just switched the position from fpga work to asic, so they were still working out the kinks while I was there. However, I did do a lot of work programming scripts to help the engineers with their work and one program that recorded and displayed how their new server was running.

So my advice is:
If you know how you work, make sure your coop will be like that. A good manager will know that the purpose of a coop is to teach you just as much as it is to get them cheap labor.
Don't be scared to ask for more work. Reading 2p2 is fun, but taking the extra step will get you a better reference letter.
Ask questions. They will know you don't know everything and people like talking about things that interest them. If you ask the right person the right questions you can learn a lot.