Arizona State vs Drexel for internships: which school has stronger career and co-op opportunities?

The biggest practical tradeoff is breadth versus structure: Arizona State gives you access to a huge alumni network and a large volume of employers, while Drexel is much more built around a formal co-op system that makes work experience part of the academic path. If your priority is having internships and industry experience embedded into college, Drexel has the clearer advantage. Its co-op model is one of the school’s defining features, and many students graduate with multiple full-time work terms already on their resume.

Drexel’s location in Philadelphia also helps. Students can access employers in the city during the academic year, and the school has long-standing relationships with companies that regularly hire co-op students. That matters because repeat employer pipelines are often more valuable than just having a career center with workshops and job boards.

Arizona State is still strong for career development, especially because of its scale, strong ties in the Phoenix area, and wide range of majors. For students in business, engineering, tech, journalism, health, and public service, there are plenty of internship possibilities, and ASU does a good job connecting students to recruiting events, research, and local industry. The challenge is that at ASU you usually need to be more self-directed about pursuing those opportunities, because the experience is not as centrally structured around co-op.

So if this comparison is mainly about which school is stronger for internships and pre-professional experience, Drexel stands out more clearly. ASU can absolutely lead to strong outcomes, especially for proactive students, but Drexel is more intentionally designed to turn classroom learning into paid, resume-building work before graduation.