Chemistry and Biochemistry

Co-op Program

Earn work experience as part your undergraduate education by enrolling in our Department's Co-operative (Co-op) Work/Study program. You will spend up to four months of a work-term in a fully-salaried chemistry or biochemistry related job. The Co-op program uses a full trimester year (three 4-month terms) and thus allow completion of a 4-year degree and 12 months of practical experience in a TOTAL of five years, with the advantage of a job during the time the student is not taking courses. Once admitted to Co-op, students are either in school or at work. To obtain the co-op designation, you must complete three work terms (with the fourth being optional). Work terms do not count for credit hours.

Please ensure that you have proper supervision for your work term project.

Eligibility

At the time of application for admission to the placement cycle, a student:

must have completed at least 21 credit hours toward a BSc degree, including CHEM 104 and CHEM 140;
must have achieved a minimum GPA of 70.00% in courses required for the major and overall;
must be enrolled in a biochemistry and chemistry program and complete at least three (3) biochemistry/chemistry courses beyond CHEM 104, prior to commencement of the first work term.

Successful completion of three work terms is required for the Co-op designation, with a fourth work term being optional. To continue in the Co-op option, students must maintain a GPA of 70.00% and must enroll in at least 12 credit hours in academic terms between work terms. One of the first two work terms must be in a fall or winter term (i.e. both may not be in summer terms).

More information

Placement of the students with prospective employers is conducted by the Co-op office, University of Regina. For further information on the Co-op program in Chemistry and Biochemistry, please contact Dr. Brian Sterenberg , the Departmental Co-op Coordinator, or if you like, you can visit the University's Co-operative Work/Study program's website.

Information on Work Term Reports

In addition to reading through the guidelines below, it is incumbent on you to write your report in close consultation with your co-op supervisor who will guide you on how to compose your report.

Report evaluation

Your work term report will be evaluated for its presentation of the work you have accomplished, its scientific and technical content, and clarity of presentation. Reports will receive a grade of Pass or Fail. A written report with a grade of Fail will be returned to the student with revisions and resubmission expected within 2 weeks. If there was no improvement to the report, no credit will be awarded for that work term.

Submission deadlines

Reports should be submitted by email to Dr. Brian Sterenberg at brian.sterenberg@uregina.ca. The work term report is due the Friday of the first full week of the semester directly following your work term. For example, if you completed your work term in the fall semester, and the winter semester begins on a Thursday, the work term report would be due the Friday of the following week. If you completed your work term during the winter semester, and the spring semester begins on a Monday, the work term report would be due the Friday of the first week.

Report format and style requirements

The report should include the nature of the work place, a detailed description of the work carried out, discussion of results, and finally a conclusion of results and your overall experience. The report should be 8 – 10 pages long, typewritten with 12 point Arial font, double spaced on letter size paper with margins of no less than one inch. It is important to focus on quality, not quantity and aim for a clear, organized and wellpresented report. Since the nature of co-op jobs can vary, the report may have a slightly different emphasis but should contain the following key elements:

1. Title Page (A title of your work, your name and student ID)

2. Letter of Submission
The letter should be addressed to the Chemistry and Biochemistry Co-op academic coordinator and is a brief outline of the report how it connects to the work term. You should include the name of the company/institution and your immediate supervisor, and acknowledge any assistance from supervisor(s) and/or peers.

3. Table of Contents, List of Figures, Tables, Abbreviations (on separate pages)

4. Summary/Abstract (no more than 100 words)
The summary/abstract provides summarizes what you have accomplished.

5. Introduction (1 – 2 pages)
You should provide a brief description of the company/institution where you carried out the work, a general overview of the work carried out, the assumption and background of the work (for technical projects), and/or the theory behind the research project.

6. Materials and Methods/Experimental Procedure (1 – 3 pages)
If the nature of job is a research project, you will provide a general presentation of the materials and methods. If the job involved routine laboratory procedures, you need to give a detailed description of the experimental procedure.

7. Results (1 – 3 pages)

For research projects, you need to provide all the results collected that will allow you to draw any meaningful conclusions. For routine procedural work, you may want to present some typical results. If applicable, you may also want to show how the results are obtained and calculated.

8. Discussion (1 – 2 pages)
Whether you are working on a research project or more procedural work, you need to discuss the results you have collected. Describe the information that can be extracted from the results. If applicable, you may also show the calculations required to extract the information.

Note: The Results and Discussion sections are sometimes combined into one as “Results and Discussion” section, and this is perfectly acceptable.

9. Conclusions (1 page)
Finally, you need to make conclusions from your results and discussion. For procedural work, you may describe how the results are applied. Finally, you may complete the report by describing what you have learned from the work term, and/or your overall experience.

10. Recommendations (if applicable)
You can make recommendations regarding the project. Sometimes, you may want to make some comments about the job or the company, which if applicable, would be suitable in this section.

11. References
Use standard references to the current literature and see below for format.

Here are some examples of Reference Styles (American Chemical Society Format is shown, but you can also use the format of your favourite journal, but be consistent):

For referencing articles in the text, use superscript numbers:

Metal complexes are well-known photocatalysts or electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction.¹

Reference section:

1. Last Name, Initial(s).; Last Name, Initial(s). Journal Abbreviation, year, volume number, page number.

Note: References must be in sequence and in consecutive order. Correct journal abbreviations should be used.

Citation for books:

Last Name, Initial(s).; Last Name, Initial(s). Title of Book; Publisher: Location, Year; page number.

Last Name, Initial(s).; Last Name, Initial(s). Title of Book; Publisher: Location, Year; chapter number.

12. Appendices (if applicable)

More information about the format of the report can be found at the Co-op website.

Double work term reports

For a double work term, two work term reports are required: the first due at the end of the first four months (first work term) and a second at the end of eight months (second work term). This is the standard for double work terms in the Co-op program at the University of Regina.

If you work on an 8-month project during the double work term, your first report can be a progress report describing the project and discussing the work you have completed during the first work term and the second report can focus on the results and conclusions of the project. On the other hand, if you work on multiple projects during the double work term, each report can focus on the project(s) completed during the first and second work terms, respectively.