I’m in my last year of undergraduate ChE studies with a mediocre (3.00-ish) gpa with absolutely no intern/lab experience. I also have exhausted connections and no good job opportunities from job fairs, yielding nothing. My professors only connect to academia. I’m also in a quarter-system school so I do not qualify for a lot of summer internships that start in May. There are very few representatives from relevant industry that come to my university. Based on what I’m reading on this subreddit and other forums, I have come to the conclusion that I am never going to get a good job and I will end up homeless for the rest of my life. I feel like it doesn’t matter how well I do in school now that I don’t have work experience. This has led to decreased motivation in schoolwork which in turn pushes me down this hole further, leading me to more depression and anxiety that I won’t get a job, leading to worsening grades and lack of hope.
It feels like school is a ticking time bomb now and once I’m no longer shielded by academia, I’ll have nothing left going for me. It depresses me more and more that the hundreds of applications and cover letters and resumes and wasted time at the career center have led to nothing. I know I’m supposed to be confident and upbeat for interviews but how am I supposed to do that when I’ve failed and been knocked down so much?
And I know that once I graduate the well of opportunity will dry up more because most companies recruit interns that are getting their degrees.
What are the critical things I can do now to get on the right track to success? I am on track to graduate in June. I only have enough money to delay graduation until this September.
First, go to student health and tell them how you are feeling. It sounds like you are depressed and that just keeps feeding itself until you intervene. Next, know that many students, for various reasons, don’t get internships while in school. Your GPA is reasonable. Polish your resume, go to every job fair, talk to every company with a possible opening and one of them will come through.
Agree with @eyemgh that this is probably not true at all. However suppose it is. Suppose with the depression of oil prices, and the merger of DuPont and Dow, that the chemical industry is in contraction. Typically when that happens, there is a glut of people on the streets looking for work. I also noticed that there do not seem to be THAT many jobs for graduating ChemEs. So what? What are your options.
Perhaps you might need to take an engineering job that isn’t in an ideal location. You may need to look for a job in an area that hires all kinds of engineers. There are certainly jobs for people with your skill set. You have developed great problem solving an analytical skills. You must have had a lot of math.
Keep your head up and expand the possibilities. You know that despair doesn’t help you. Your life is just beginning. Expand your horizons a little.
One option is to stop the clock. Take a leave. There are a multitude of co-op jobs available that start immediately. Many are in the middle of nowhere. Apply to them all and try to get one. Earn some money. Do some work. Go back to school after you’ve completed one and delay your graduation by a year. There are also contracting companies that hire on a temporary basis.
You really need to separate the emotional from the factual.
If you don’t mind doing it, a lot of people with various engineering degrees end up writing software for a living. A guy I worked with at my old job had a degree in chemical engineering and he seemed to be happy as a clam working as a programmer.
To be a good engineer, you need to be persistent and not give up when you run into problems. I had to send out more than a hundred resumes, and move about 1500 miles from where I went to school, before I got my first job.
First, agreed talk to someone at student health to be screened for depression, but also talk to someone at the career center about who you can talk to about job opportunities. Are you being melodramatic or do you really see this as a portend for disaster.
Finish up your degree and use your angst to push yourself to do really well this semester.
I don’t see a high probability of a poor future for you at all … unless you don’t take care of you and spiral further down into depression.
I graduated in a poor market for Chem Es back in the 80s. What did I do ? I kept sending out applications and going to interviews. I decided to go back to school at a commuting distance school and take some graduate computer science classes (and if you haven’t taken many comp sci classes, you might find good offerings at an even lower price at a local cc).
I took a nice vacation. If you don’t have a lot of money, can you consider doing some backpacking or cheap student type travel either in the US. What you have right now is time and little money, very soon you will have some money and no time. That period lasts for about 40 years. You can also go live a beach bum kind of life this summer and wait tables or whatever. You have a cell phone with email, if you keep pumping out those resumes, doing web research on potential jobs, etc … something will come up.
Finally - I got a job in aerospace engineering … which has led to a long and successful career.
So be open minded. Many companies and many industries can use your education, whether just the math/analytical part or even the chemistry part.
Also try to be flexible about both salary and job descriptions. For job descriptions, very few jobs are that similar to what you expect at the interview, and if a company is fairly big, it is often easy to internally transfer or even take on new responsibilities. And salaries can be raised gradually through promotions or job changes. and live frugally, which is a good way to lead a financially secure life. and, if a company won’t let you grow past a job you take in order to get experience, it is very fair to move on. They have profited by having you work hard and smart … and you have your experience.