Political Science and International Studies undergrad, Kelly Grounds, says co-op experience is invaluable

Hailing from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Kelly Grounds is a political science honours student and an international studies minor who came to SFU in 2015 on an entrance scholarship. SFU was her university of choice because Grounds wanted to move to the mainland and was initially interested in SFU’s health sciences programs.

But during her first semester, after taking electives in international studies and political science, Grounds’ interest shifted to global politics. After joining SFU’s Model NATO Club and taking an upper-level political science course, she found herself more engrossed by the topics of defense, diplomacy, and counter-terrorism. She ended up declaring her major in political science the following year.

Since then, she has completed her coursework and undertaken two different kinds of co-op positions: a governmental co-op position with Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, and currently, a research co-op for the Assessment of Technology in Context Design Lab in SFU’s Faculty of Communication.

She speaks highly of both her co-op experiences and says that they have been extremely valuable, demonstrating how one’s academic skills can be applied in a professional context.

“My co-op in government has set me up for applying to future government co-ops,” says Grounds. “I also think this co-op gave me many soft skills that I can easily transfer into various jobs in the future.”

“My research co-op position has better prepared me for my higher education aspiration,” she adds. “Having the chance to learn more complex research methods has already benefited my honours thesis, and I imagine that it will continue to be useful in my continued education.”

While Grounds’ experiences with co-op have been very positive overall, she says there have been challenges to overcome. For example, during her first co-op, the work initially involved organizing a lot of boxes of documents and taking inventory of records—tasks which some might find rather boring. However, Grounds says that working through these kinds of tasks and being committed to finishing them was a lesson in and of itself.

She also notes that applying for positions during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic presented a particular challenge.

“While the actual searching was not challenging, navigating the application processes and job changes during the initial stages [of the pandemic] were… Many jobs had to be pushed back while others were cancelled altogether,” she says. “This caused many students to feel an element of uncertainty during their searches.”

Grounds is grateful to be working in her current co-op position, despite the difficulties and is now excited to be nearing the end of her degree.

“Once I finish, I hope to take a year off to gain more work experience while also improving my French,” she says. “After that, I hope to enter a master's program in terrorism and security or international conflict in Europe. Ideally, I would love to do a dual master's program and begin working in government again or at an international organization.”

What advice does she have for students new to co-op? “Work closely with the advisors during your searching semester,” she says. “I am so grateful to my advisor (Michelle) for always working with me and refining each of my cover letters during my searches.”

Grounds also suggests students apply to as many jobs as possible and ask their advisor about any possible missed opportunities. Perhaps most importantly, she adds, “try to avoid the trap of thinking that you are only qualified for jobs that explicitly fit in with your area of focus when in reality, you have a ton of soft skills that open the door to a wider variety of jobs and new experiences.”