When early co-ops bring engineering education to life: How process diagnostics transformed skill growth in second-year students

Context and challenge

For Industrial Engineering students at Universidad de La Sabana, Diagnóstico de Procesos represents a pivotal moment: their first structured immersion into real companies. As co-op participants, these fourth-semester students step into operating environments where they must observe, interpret, and propose improvements to existing processes.

Their tasks include mapping production or service workflows, identifying bottlenecks, gathering operational data, interviewing frontline personnel, and presenting initial improvement opportunities. It is an experience that challenges them to apply engineering thinking long before traditional internships begin.

Yet faculty faced a crucial question: Does early workplace exposure accelerate measurable skill development in young engineers?

According to Program Director Luz Helena Mancera, students at this stage are still exploring professional identities. Many express interest in logistics, production, project management, or data-driven roles, but they often “don’t know which of their strengths are real and which are simply aspirational.” Before 1Mentor, this reflection was subjective and inconsistent across cohorts.

The University needed a structured, evidence-based method to observe skill development and understand how authentic workplace exposure shapes career direction.

1Mentor’s value

1Mentor became the bridge between co-op experience and measurable learning.

Student benefits:

• A structured reflection on their professional future.

• Objective clarity on their current skill sets.

• Awareness of the skill gap between their present and career goals.

Program benefits:

• Replacement of manual surveys used for co-op placement.

• Reduced operational workload for faculty.

• Clear understanding of student interests.

• Actionable evidence for curricular alignment with industry needs.

As Luz Helena explains: “I find it deeply enriching that, for the first time, students seriously reflect on who they want to become and what skills they need to get there.”

The process

1. Initial diagnostic

Before beginning the co-op, students created a 1Mentor profile.

Results showed:

• 368 reported skills in student profiles

• 98 unique skills

• 11.5 skills per student on average

2. Early co-op placement

Students entered companies and conducted hands-on diagnostic work on organizational processes, analyzing workflows, documenting findings, and presenting improvement proposals.

3. Final diagnostic

After completing their co-op term, students repeated the assessment. The comparison with their initial profiles revealed the substantial impact of their industry through growth in their skill sets.

Results and impact

1. Strong skill development

• 368 → 517 reported skills (+149; +40.5%)

• 98 → 146 unique skills (+48; +49%)

• Average of 4.66 skills gained per student

• 72% of students augmented their skill set

2. Upskilling aligned with real engineering work

Skills with the greatest growth:

• Microsoft Excel (+9)

• Organizational Skills (+9)

• Problem Solving (+8)

• Project Management (+8)

• Communication (+7)

• Leadership (+7)

• Decision-Making (+5)

• Logistics (+4)

4. Expansion of technical and analytical recommendations

Recommended skills rose from 64 → 117, including:

• Data Analysis

• Data Visualization

• Data Science

• Apache Spark

• C++

• Deep Learning

Lessons and opportunities

• Early co-op experiences produce tangible skill growth for students; the 1Mentor Platform gave students and the institution a way to measure this impact.

• Students were supported through insights and analytics to gain clearer professional direction at an early stage in their academic career.

• Skill insights can inform curriculum updates, especially in data-driven competencies.

• This approach can be replicated across other professional practice programs and experiences.

Universidad de La Sabana demonstrated that when early workplace exposure is paired with evidence-based tools, learning becomes visible. Through its partnership with 1Mentor, the university transformed introductory co-op experiences into a measurable foundation for engineering professionalism—proving that meaningful learning doesn’t begin at graduation; it begins the moment students step into the real world.