Exploring New Career Opportunities Through Co-op
Through his co-op journey, Peter Woskov, E’07, mechanical engineering technology, learned to leave the door open for new experiences, allowing him to have a successful career after graduating.
When Peter Woskov, E’07, mechanical engineering technology, began his first co-op, he already had a childhood’s worth of experience under his belt. Influenced by his engineer father, Woskov grew up taking apart and rebuilding his toys to improve or modify them. Woskov’s passions evolved into a large-scale project when he first opened Haunted Driveway, a haunted attraction consisting primarily of self-made animatronics. He continues to expand upon and open the attraction to visitors more than two decades later.
Woskov’s continued interest in entertainment brought him to Northeastern, where he could gain hands-on work experience through co-op while taking advantage of Northeastern’s technical theatre courses. Hoping to work as an engineer in the entertainment industry, Woskov pursued an opportunity at Walt Disney Imagineering for his first co-op but pivoted once he realized it would not immediately benefit his engineering background.
“They said I was going to have to do a custodian job or sell merchandise in the park to be considered for work in the Imagineering department,” says Woskov, “and there were no guarantees that was going to happen.”
This brought Woskov to Parker Hannifin, where he worked as a manufacturing engineer in the company’s pneutronics division. Although it was a deviation from entertainment, Woskov says his work at Parker Hannifin exposed him to technical skills and terminology essential to his later co-ops and post-graduate career.
“It turned out to be an awesome job,” says Woskov. “I honestly think out of the three co-ops I did, I actually learned the most on the first co-op.”
Woskov working on the Haunted Driveway
Parker Hannifin introduced Woskov to pneumatics and tool engineering and gave him experience with CAD software such as SolidWorks. He worked on various projects there, including creating a solenoid valve for medical air tanks. Woskov still applies his CAD experience from this co-op to his work today and relies on his pneumatics background when building animatronics for the Haunted Driveway. “Everything has become a lot more efficient,” he says.
Woskov also says his role at Parker Hannifin taught him how to effectively work with other engineers on a singular project, often requiring him to coordinate work efforts across multiple schedules.
“Everyone has different schedules about getting projects done,” says Woskov. “You can’t just tell someone to get a portion of a project done if you’re working with a team, you have to work with their schedules.”
When it was time to apply for his second co-op, Woskov searched for a new experience to further diversify his skillset. He found this at Brooks Automation, where he worked as a mechanical engineer. He worked primarily with servomotors to build wafer-handling robots for the semiconductor industry, a firm departure from pneumatics. Additionally, Woskov was able to develop his SolidWorks skills further and learn new industry standards, such as lab setup procedures and programming.
Woskov pursued a self-made position as a mechanical engineer at iRobot for his third and final co-op. Before Woskov, iRobot had not accepted a co-op but had hosted summer interns from MIT annually. Today, iRobot continues to provide work opportunities to Northeastern students every co-op cycle, a decision based mainly on Woskov’s performance during his co-op.
“At the end of the six months, they told me it was based on how well I did there if they were going to continue a co-op program,” says Woskov. “They said, ‘You did an excellent job, we really want to get more co-op students from the engineering department.’”
Once again, Woskov’s role at iRobot exposed him to new technologies and practices, giving him new experiences and broadening his skill set. He worked primarily on iRobot’s Scooba floor-scrubbing robot, modifying and redesigning the device’s squeegee and water pump to increase efficiency and ease of use. iRobot also granted Woskov time to work on his own project, which he used to design a robot to clean leaves out of house gutters alongside an engineer.
“About a year and a half after I left the co-op, it was a product you could buy in the store,” says Woskov. “It was really cool to actually see something I was working on way at the beginning in a product design.”
Shortly after graduating from Northeastern, Woskov accepted a position in an entertainment-based engineering role in Las Vegas. This position was short-lived, as he was one of many people who lost their jobs during the 2007 housing market crash and subsequent economic recession. He returned home and utilized Northeastern’s alumni career resources to find his next job at Boston Micromachines Corporation.
“Even when I was unemployed after my first engineering job, I was able to go back to Northeastern, and they helped me find an engineering job…” says Woskov. “I was really happy about that.”
Woskov installing a feed system on a vessel for his current role at Innovasea
When searching for his next job, Woskov’s previous experience working with consumer products at iRobot secured him an engineering role at Keurig Green Mountain, now Keurig Dr. Pepper. He worked there for over seven years, designing coffee brewers and their mechanical components. Woskov currently works at Innovasea as a senior mechanical design engineer, collaborating with a team of engineers to design open ocean fish farming equipment.
For Woskov, co-op was an important lesson in keeping himself open to trying new opportunities, even if they were not exactly what he imagined.
“When I was in college, I thought the best job you could have was entertainment engineering,” says Woskov. “I’ve come to realize that there are a lot of other jobs out there that are really fun to do. It doesn’t have to just be entertainment.”
Woskov’s co-ops were also vital in teaching him how to work cooperatively with other engineers, navigate their schedules and attitudes, and execute a project successfully. Furthermore, his exposure to CAD design, starting with his co-op at Parker Hannifin, has been integral to his postgraduate career journey and is a skill he still uses today.
In the future, Woskov hopes to take on a managerial position where he can delegate tasks to other engineers while staying involved in work on the manufacturing floor. For now, he reflects on his co-op experience with a sense of pride.
“I’m really happy. I really pushed to get the best co-op jobs I could…” says Woskov. “I don’t have any regrets about the path I took.”