Research on Co-op Program for Entrepreneurial Education in the Automotive Industry

www.erfrontier.org Education Research Frontier September 2015, Volume 5, Issue 3, PP.37‐41 Research on Co-op Program for Entrepreneurial Education in the Automotive Industry Jie Ji , Mengrou Tang 2 1. College of Engineering and Technology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China 2. Department of Automotive Engineering, Jiangxi V&T College of Communication, Nanchang 330013, China Email: jijiess@swu.edu.cn Abstract Reinforcing entrepreneurial education at universities will have a positive impact on the entrepreneurial dynamism of Chinese economy, and the support for entrepreneurship in higher education has never been more important than it is now. For the major of Automotive Engineering, Cooperative Education (Co-op) is an academic-focused program which allows students to obtain professional work experience while still in university. The Co-op program will provide students with the chance to combine classroom study with periods of paid professional employment directly related to the major of automotive engineering and career goals. This paper will introduce the successful experiences of Co-op program at University of Waterloo, and the exploration of the Co-op program provides an innovative fostering model for entrepreneurship education in China.