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At a Crossroads
msuitepyon
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Quick background: I have a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from LSU (class of 2011). I got a job straight out of college but unfortunately lost it (admittedly because of my actions) about a year and a half ago. I went unemployed for 9 months until I landed a retail job. Since then, I had a brief (August to December) contract engineering position. Outside of that, I've been out of the engineering game since and looking at job postings shows me that I'm unqualified for most everything. I feel like I'm stuck in a rut and I can't seem to get myself out of it.
As such I've decided that it may be time to go back to school. Herein lies my problem. As I see it, I have three avenues: a masters degree in mechanical engineering, an MBA, or an associates degree from a technical school. The masters pose unique problems as I have been out of school since 2011 and would require a few letters of recommendation--my initial plan was to audit a few classes as a non-degree seeking student and foster some relationships with professors. Unfortunately, that costs $Texas. The associates, while speedier and cheaper, also poses a problem--it would effectively kill my career as a mechanical engineer.
I'm not too sure where to go. Would anyone be able to provide any insights?
As such I've decided that it may be time to go back to school. Herein lies my problem. As I see it, I have three avenues: a masters degree in mechanical engineering, an MBA, or an associates degree from a technical school. The masters pose unique problems as I have been out of school since 2011 and would require a few letters of recommendation--my initial plan was to audit a few classes as a non-degree seeking student and foster some relationships with professors. Unfortunately, that costs $Texas. The associates, while speedier and cheaper, also poses a problem--it would effectively kill my career as a mechanical engineer.
I'm not too sure where to go. Would anyone be able to provide any insights?
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See about getting in touch with some old profs!
A master's degree or AA isn't going to miraculously solve the job problem, though. In fact, having an MA or MS and insufficient qualifying work experience can actually be a detriment to employment (as most Masters level positions want lots of work experience to qualify, and most Bachelor's jobs will view you as temporary or overqualified). Getting an AA on the side is only going to add whatever you learn in the classes as the credential is typically meaningless once you have a BS (and there are cheaper ways of going about learning new skills than state/community colleges). Couple that with the fact the cost of a masters is usually so high you can really only afford to do it once (and usually only then once you hit the ceiling for employment without one). We typically call this view that more education will solve employment as an avoidance issue, when usually the issue is more closer related to lack of a network to leverage, lack of immediate hiring knowledge, lack of desire to enter at the ground floor, or lack of market in your area.
What is your personal network like? How connected are you to secondary job sources (friends of parents, friends of professors, other sources of connections)? Have you tried local job hunting agencies or CDF coordinators (Louisiana is part of the Career Development Facilitator umbrella, these guys aren't the ~best~ for job placement but they do have an unusually large amount of resources available for the hunt compared to most places (and this is coming from someone with the certification). They often are cheaper than temp agencies also. If you still have access to LSU's career services or your major academic advisors they will likely be more in touch with local job market better than a private sector CDF, but both have uses).
Going back to school when you already have a bachelors is rarely going to grant you new employment. What you typically will have more success with is having a greater leveraging of resources, using things like Massive Open Online Courses (Moocs) to get new skills and polish up new techniques while visiting your old university advisors and professors to ask for any breadcrumbs they might now for your preferred areas in engineering.
Most jobs you are going to look for at this stage of your employment probably won't be engineering credentials with how long you've been out. At this stage you likely want to look for relevant entry level work. Find any related jobs with companies in your relevant industry, it doesn't matter what they are or how related they are to what you eventually want to do., The goal is to build up your network and work towards those jobs so you can eventually break into them. Most technical positions in STEM require 2-5 years of experience beyond the knowledge(even with an MA or MS), relevant experience is an extremely broad thing and you want to find anything that can be used to satisfy that.
You may also want to consider moving if your industry lacks any sort of presence in your city.
If you decide that you absolutely must go back to school (which, again, I don't think will prove helpful and likely just accrue more debt), limit your goals to a professional-based graduate certificate program. These are typically very vocationally based for specific industries and are more likely to give you useful skills, rather than theory, for actually going out there and getting into the field of your choosing. Most can later be applied to relevant MA or MS programs as well (and they tend to only be about 5-6 classes in most regions).
That doesn't mean you owe a company your loyalty (you don't and this view will bite you long term), but at entry level your goal needs to be "shiny enough to stand out, stable enough to pay back training costs, and inquisitive enough to offer initiative and solutions during your interview."
My job out of college took me from Baton Rouge, LA (where LSU is) to Atlanta, GA. This, in effect (and somewhat stupidly), took me out of my professional network. Because I didn't do so well at my job, I hesitate to rely on anyone there for any kind of professional recommendations. I think also that currently there isn't a lot of entry-level positions with engineering-like companies in this area (Atlanta has been more IT-centric in its development).
I've been using Indeed to look at openings but have also gone to staffing agencies (what landed me the contract job). My wife, also an engineer (from Georgia Tech), has had no problems finding a position that suits her and has even developed into a rather impressive career in such a short time. I guess in that sense it may be a little discouraging.
@Enc - Thank you so much for your input. I've shelved the whole "going back to school" thing for the time being and doubled down on my job search. Interestingly enough, I've run into another quandary. So I was showing my wife a job I found (this one here). Night shift being beside the point (mustn't be picky), this is something I felt I could do and do well along the lines of entry-level engineering. My wife poo-pooed the idea and I went back to look at other openings the company offered. She saw this and told me to apply for this one. I'm a little hesitant; I feel like that may be aiming too high. Any insights?
When in doubt, apply.