LA29199 + LA29299
A summer internship ends before it gets interesting. By the time a student understands a firm's workflow, standards, and culture, a summer placement is already winding down. The co-op is built around what happens after that point.
LA29199 and LA29299 are the fall and spring credit designations for a single continuous experience: a minimum of 40 contiguous weeks of full-time employment at one firm under a licensed landscape architect, replacing the traditional fourth year of Purdue's accredited five-year Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture. Students arrive with three years of formal training and leave with a year of real practice; the gap between those two states is what the program is designed to fill.
My role as director is to prepare students before they go, maintain contact while they're away, and ensure that firms are partners in the educational mission rather than simply employers of intern labor. Students on co-op need more than classroom advice. The work involves year-round mentorship across a wide range of situations: relocating and establishing in a new city, integrating into an office culture, navigating performance expectations, managing housing contracts and professional conflicts, and developing the practical life skills that students don't realize they need until they're living and working away from campus for the first time. The role calls for shifting between professor, mentor, parent, and advocate, often within the same conversation.
Years Taught
2017-present
Internship Duration: 40+ contiguous weeks
Partner Firms: 101 firms, 21 states
Annual Placement Rate: 99%
Students Returning with Job Offer: 87%
Information for Students
Before you go
LA30900 is the preparation course that runs the semester before your co-op. By the time you leave campus you will have a portfolio, a resume, a cover letter, and enough interview experience to walk into a firm conversation with some confidence. The spring career fair is your primary recruiting event, the first time you and prospective firms meet in person, and most placements are confirmed shortly after.
Before your start date we will meet to confirm your assignment, establish your firm mentor contact, and set expectations for how we'll communicate while you're away.
While you're there
Firms that participate in the co-op program have agreed to specific educational commitments: variety of project exposure, a licensed mentor, access to client meetings and site visits, and formal performance reviews. You are entitled to hold your firm to those commitments. They will hold you to equivalent professional standards in return.
Check-ins with me occur at least twice a semester alongside Brightspace course assignments and surveys. These are not evaluations, they are a standing line of communication. If something is going wrong: with your project assignment, your firm environment, your living situation, or anything else; contact me before it compounds. I have dealt with most of the things that can go wrong during a co-op year and I would rather hear about a problem early.
Your firm mentor will complete two formal assessments of your performance through Qualtrics: one at roughly three months and one at separation. You will receive the results. Read them carefully regardless of the direction of the feedback.
When you return
In the first month of the semester, plan to debrief with me on your experience. Separately, your portfolio should be updated with co-op work before the semester gets away from you; returning students consistently underestimate how long it takes to document a year of professional output at a level worth showing.
Beyond your own work, you'll contribute to the program community in three ways. When appropriate, you'll participate in virtual co-op presentations for the junior class, the students preparing to go where you just were. You'll take part in PASLA mentorship and portfolio review events, where your co-op experience is directly useful to students still developing theirs. And where possible, you'll serve as a mentor liaison for current students on co-op at your former firm or in your placement city, extending the kind of on-the-ground support that I am unable to offer since I don’t have the experience you do with your recent firm.
Information for Firms
What this program asks of you
The co-op program is a partnership, not a placement service. Firms that participate agree to meet the educational mission of the program alongside their operational needs. That means treating your co-op student as someone you are developing, not just deploying.
Your co-op student will have completed three years of formal training before arriving, with coursework in traditional and digital representation, planting design, materials and construction documents, grading and hydrology, and a sequence of themed design studios. They are competent across those areas. What they do not yet have is sustained professional practice, and that is what the co-op year is for.
What we ask
Students should work across a variety of projects and project types over the course of the year. Week-to-week production demands are understood; the concern is with patterns sustained over months.
Students should not be confined to a single software task, single deliverable type, or single project for extended stretches. A student who spends their entire co-op year in CAD production is not getting the breadth the program requires.
Students should have one professionally licensed mentor who serves as their primary point of contact and the program's liaison at your firm. That mentor does not need to supervise every project assignment, only to be the standing contact for non-project guidance.
Students should have access, as passive observers, to business and management contexts: client meetings, staffing discussions, budget reviews, site visits, tree tagging, measure-ups, etc. These are the professional contexts that cannot be simulated in a classroom.
Students should receive at least two formal performance reviews, with one occurring at or near separation. Additional reviews at your firm's normal cadence are welcome and encouraged.
The firm mentor agrees to complete two brief Qualtrics assessments of the student's competence and performance: one in late November and one at separation. Each takes roughly twenty minutes and is delivered by your co-op student via their Brightspace course page.
Communication with the program
I do not interfere with your business operations. What I ask is that I am kept informed of any significant changes in the student's assignment or any issues with performance, health, or professional conduct that become a concern. Early communication gives me the best chance to help resolve things before they affect either the student or your firm.
What you get in return
A student for ten to fifteen months rather than a summer, with enough time to actually learn how your firm works. On average, 87% of Purdue co-op students finish their year with a standing job offer from their placement firm. Firms that invest in developing a student over a full year consistently report stronger outcomes than those that treat the co-op as extended project help. The relationships built through the program are among the most durable in the profession.
Students are available as early as May 15 and can remain as late as mid-August of the following year, depending on individual schedules and your firm's needs.
Circle size reflects relative number of student placements per metro area. International placements include firms in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Gansu, China. Hover any marker for firm details.