Erik Makinen - Coop Q & A

Co-op Terms: Fall 2023-Spring 2024

Where did you work?

 I worked at SFU Facilities Services in the Campus Planning and Development unit.

What was your role? What were some of your responsibilities?

My position title was “GIS Technician”, meaning my primary responsibility was supporting the management of all SFU geospatial data for maintenance, planning, and development purposes. For the most part, this was done on the back end with existing data sets which required modification or reorganization for use in a specific project. On some occasions, this also meant supporting the field work collecting new geospatial data about campus infrastructure, both through advising on best practices or helping with manual information collection.

How have the skills/knowledge developed in the classroom apply to your job? What did you learn?

From what symbologies were appropriate for what uses and why, to different methods to merge data sets and which were best suited for what contexts, the GIS courses I had taken up to that point gave me a great technical basis for the position’s demands. It is, however, a very different experience to make decisions on a project because you know it will score highly on a prof’s rubric, versus needing to collaboratively determine the criterion for success with project’s stakeholders. Through my co-op, building off the technical foundations I had learned in courses, it is these processes which I learned most about: the industry demands and applications of GIS, and how they can be applied to match a diversity of project needs.

Can you share a challenge you faced in your Co-op and how you overcame it?

A major challenge I faced at the beginning of my co-op was pacing. That is, adjusting from the more flexible work demands of classes and volunteering to a set eight-hour workday. To do this, one of the strategies that I found helped me most was keeping a daily journal. At the end of every working day, I would set aside the last fifteen minutes of my shift to reflect on the day’s successes and shortcomings; what I felt I’d done well, what I felt I needed to improve on, and the lessons I could draw on from both. This helped me develop strategies to improve my workflow by systematically addressing shortcomings and doubling-down on effective behaviours.

What was your most memorable Co-op experience?

The experience which has stuck with me most from co-op was designing, executing, and presenting my own self-directed project. With the support of my supervisor, I had the chance to undertake research into the use of plants and vegetation in flood-water management, create a framework for quantifying its available capacity on Burnaby Mountain using GIS, then present my findings to a group of my colleagues. At the end of it all, the experience stood out to me most because it represented the epitome of all I had learned through the co-op experience, from technical skills to project management and logistical organization.

What have you learned through your Co-op experience?

A common question many Geography students get asked is ‘so what do you want to do with your major?’. Effectively, what jobs can you work after your degree, based on the skills you’ll have learned. Co-op, for me, has become one of the best ways for me to answer this question. Although I’ve by no means figured out my desired career path to a tee, it has helped me get a much better sense of the types of workplace responsibilities, expectations, and cultures I want to pursue in my career long-term.

What advice do you have for future Co-op students?

My best advice for future students would be to remember that co-op is a learning experience which is part of your degree, not just a side-quest separate from all other academic decisions. Integrating a co-op work term with your degree in a thoughtful, planned-out capacity can go a long way towards improving your experience on the job and shape the future direction of your academic studies. As such, its best to think holistically about co-op and how it fits into your degree, not just in terms of the work experience it gives you, but how that experience can shape your decisions going forward.