Honors Student Gaining Real World Experience with Co-Op Program

Imagine working full-time at a well-known company, doing tangible work, and gaining valuable real-world experience—all before graduating. That is exactly the case for Honors sophomore Brianna Butler, who is taking advantage of Merrimack’s co-op program, and working this semester as the Direct Marketing Co-Op at the Boston Globe.

Brianna, a Marketing major, found out about the position through Advantage, Merrimack’s career website. She said that staff at the O’Brien Center For Student Success was “very helpful” throughout the process. The Co-Op program at Merrimack allows students to alternate a semester of full-time paid work (for Business, Engineering, and Computer Science students) and a semester of classes, or work full-time during the summer and part-time during the semester along with classes (for Liberal Arts and Sciences students).

At the Boston Globe, Brianna works on many different projects. Her department specializes in circulation, so she runs many reports that analyze the results of the Globe’s campaigns, whether they be direct mail, email, or otherwise. Her biggest project is GRANT: Globe Readers And Non-profits Together, a program that gives subscribers vouchers for free ad space that they then give to the nonprofit of their choice. “It’s really neat. I manage the Twitter, help manage the website, and enter in the vouchers—we have tens of thousands of subscribers that participate.”

Overall, the co-op program gives students the feel for a full-time work environment, while still remaining part of the Merrimack community and continuing their academic courses once the co-op is complete. Of her co-op, Brianna says, “It’s nice because I’m getting a feel for all the programs they use and all the different campaigns they run, so I’ll have a well-rounded description to put on my resume.”