Honors Student Co-op at Weston and Sampson

Alex Juliano ’18, a Civil Engineering major, completed a unique co-op last semester, opting to participate in Merrimack’s five year Cooperative Education Program. From May 2015 to January 2016, Juliano worked at Weston & Sampson, an environmental and infrastructure consulting firm out of Peabody, MA. Alex was in the water group, which means that he documented construction of new water main infrastructure for towns located in the Boston area. While a fraction of his work consisted of outside fieldwork, about 75% of it involved designing in the office.

Juliano’s primary jobs included drafting plans for the public records of the towns about what was built, tracking new water meter installation in public homes, reviewing drawings and contracts, and performing sampling to test water quality. He also helped design water treatment plants, towers, and wells. Juliano dedicated upwards of 40 hours a week to this co-op, but the hands-on experience was worth the time. He said that his favorite part was “talking to all of the other workers because everyone there loved all that they were doing and it made it really enjoyable to be there every day.” Their passion strengthened his excitement for the work.

This co-op for Juliano was a nice break from schoolwork, even though his involvement in the five year co-op program has pushed back his graduation date a year. Next year during the spring semester he will complete another co-op either with Weston & Sampson or another company. The program at Merrimack allowed Juliano to gain valuable experience, and he states he was simply “trading the late nights of studying to going to the workplace at six, or the office at eight in the morning.” He gained technical skills that he would not have necessarily gotten in the classroom, making him a valuable asset for future employers. It was rewarding for him to have an important role in the projects that they did, and Alex enjoyed working at Weston & Sampson for his co-op.