College CoOp Question from a parent

[RazBerryBeret]

My son is a third year Mechanical Engineering student.
This semester is a "mandatory CoOp" semester.
His CoOp/Internship fell thru, classes start on Tuesday (a week from today) and he doesn't have housing (dorm move-in was today).
But he does have another phone interview on Thursday.

Has anyone else been through something like this? I would imagine it has to happen all the time?
ME students have 3 required CoOps to graduate, each during the school year.
The Housing department said that they are "not giving any more housing because of low availability" and recommended we look off campus. I mean low availability means they have some, right? I really don't know how things like this work in a large-ish University, does anyone have experience?

[genxlib]

1. Wish I could help

But I am very interested in your question. My daughter is interested in taking that path. Possibly ME or Biomedical with a heavy focus on CoOp. She is just going into her Senior year so she is still figuring out where to go.

The program you describe sounds like RIT which she liked OK. It also sounds a little like Northwestern which she loved. Would be interested to know what school your son is at.

[RazBerryBeret]

3. University of Cincinnati

It's ranked as one of the top public college programs in the state, even above Ohio State. it's a 5 year program because they have the 3 required CoOps. So basically my son will either be in school or working in the field for the next 2 years.

[genxlib]

6. Sounds great

I didn't realize it was a state school. I have no idea why that didn't make my daughter's list but she has a multipage spreadsheet with all kinds of parameters. I would mention it but she is trying to pare them down at this point.

Thanks for the input

[onetexan]

2. Depends on where he's attending school

Our kiddo is @UT austin. The university is smack down town
& housing close to campus is hard to find. She was in an honors dorm for her freshman year & wanted to move to an off campus apartment for the next years so we had to look for off campus housing 6 months before the fall semester of her sophomore year.
I recommend going on facebook or another site that posts new leases or sublets, there's bound to be some.

[RazBerryBeret]

4. I've just joined 3 FB pages

for the university's off campus housing. I have several messages out to people, hopefully something will turn up.

[NJCher]

5. lots of colleges in our area

and very little reasonably priced housing. Doesn't the housing office at the university have listings of off-campus housing? That's what a good share of the students around here do--find a room rental through a listing at the school. I've worked at the various universities in the area, so that's how I know about this.

There are also college student listings on craigslist and sometimes people with places for rent will post a flyer. You might check for flyers with listings at some of the coffee shops and other types of stores frequented by students. I'd look specifically for people who want a student.

Another idea would be to check for people looking for roommates.

If you go with a room listing in a private home, there are all kinds of resources available to you to check out what kind of people they are.

Yet another idea is, since he has education in ME and is probably pretty handy, would be to look at listings for apartment complexes. I don't know where you're at, but here in NJ those kinds of people are in high demand and can pretty much write their own ticket. He might be able to trade out his apartment or a part of the rent for the apartment with his skills. Sometimes these places have apartments that need renovation. He might be able to trade out a little renovation work for a place, also.