In terms of academics, my OVERALL GPA is slightly above a 3.0 (i screwed up big time in community college but got my act together after transferring and have a 3.7 at my university). I am attending an okay state school.
In terms of coding languages, I know how to program C, C++, C#, and MATLAB.
In terms of clubs, I am part of SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Math) and I recently joined a Power and Energy Society Club which in which I am helping building a Solar Tracker project on a team of engineers as I am learning how to work Arduino.
I have NO internship/research experience as everyone has rejected me on the basis of my overall GPA and transcripts (like I said, my community college record hurts me).
I am willing to go to graduate school IF it means the job prospects and salary is alot higher.
ALSO, I am willing to take exams if necessary for certain jobs.
Computing, operations research, finance/actuarial, data science are some common ones, but they have some dependence on what electives you chose in college.
I understand your concern about the money but you should prioritize getting your foot in the door over making bank right outside of school. I took a very low paying job as a programming intern after college at $18 an hour simply because I did not have the programming background and having made a starting salary in the 30’s and am jumping into the 70’s about 4 years post-college in a low COL area.
I have a math BS. I own a house. I have a soon-to-be fiance. I have two dogs. I have a car payment.
My friend has a math PhD. He has a baby. He has no job yet. He’d be lucky to get a job that pays a little over half of what I make now with his programming skillset.
You don’t need to get a better degree. You just need to get your foot in the door and work. Make connections. That’s the way the real world works. Every great opportunity I’ve had has been because someone went to bat on my behalf and I followed through strongly.