I’m still in my undergraduate years and while I do love engineering, I currently have a dilemma, where I am not completely positive if engineering is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I’m thinking about taking a year or two off after graduating to explore a little bit and to take up several jobs non-engineering related. Out of interest, I would also like to do some humanitarian work, I guess this can be somewhat engineering related lol, and I’m also planning to possibly pursue my hobbies of DJing and dancing during this gap/break period. I was wondering if I purposely don’t try to find an engineering job (in actuality I’m not even sure how great of job I can land just cause of my current averagish GPA) immediately after graduating, can I still come back to it in the future? Any opinions about this? What have other engineering graduates done before?
You can most certainly “come back”. Just make sure that in break period that you’re developing skills and insight whether that be goal orientated or team oriented. Also, don’t let forget the coursework you learned in college. Brush up on them and be sure that if asked on certain concepts, you are able to answer them.
Job hunting will involve having the skill set they want. Not a problem to do something else, but be aware you’ll need the right buzz words on your resume to get those interviews. Could you do DJing or dancing as an evening venture?
I’d suggest you try an engineering job straight out of college.
I say that as an engineer myself, but also as a mom of an engineering senior. I’d like to see DS acquire technical job experience and pay back college loans in the near term. He has an exciting job lined up, and that makes me smile. What do your parents think?
Speaking as an engineering manager, having a gap in your resume will significantly hurt your chances at finding an engineering job, especially if you don’t have much relevant work experience.
As a retired (mostly) ex-manager; a gap right out of school will definitely hurt you. Especially if your grades aren’t the greatest. It can be done, but remember that you are not looking for a job in a vacuum, there will be many other candidates that will have their engineering classwork fresh in their minds and ready to work.
You are much better off taking a gap year while you are still in college. You can then come back and finish off your degree (in engineering or in your new-found calling). Most schools will allow you to take off a year LOA.
@colorado_mom I spoke with my parents and thankfully I’m glad to say that my parents are okay with it, luckily and largely because we didn’t have to use loans thanks to the beauty of scholarships and financial aid.
@sacchi and
@HPuck35
If say I hope to be able to get some internship experiences while being an undergraduate, would that help to alleviate any possible lack of major experiences after the gap? Maybe its just me, but I’ve heard from a few graduates that I talked too, that they either did, or knew of some people, who had trouble finding jobs, especially during the economic downturn era a few years ago, and some who actually had to take that gap. Flash forward a few years they seem to be doing fine and actually told me they were actually glad they took the break cause it gave them time to relax. One even told me he took 2 years off to teach at a school and volunteer at a community service site before returning to find work as a full-time engineer. I’m from a large city and feel that there should a lot of jobs out there, the main concern is really the competition to get them. Any opinons about this?
@ItsJustSchool
I personally don’t feel like taking a gap year while in college would help because a lot of the stuff I’m hoping to do such as the service work, DJing, and dancing, I actually already do while in school. The gap after is really just for me to take some time to really commit to it and see what I would like to do for a living in the long-term sense.
Think of it this way: why would they hire someone who took a break when they can just hire someone fresh out of college? Graduating engineering students aren’t exactly scarce.
If you got an MS after you’re done taking a break, that might be a different story.
The company I worked for was, I believe, somewhat typical when it came to internships. They were offered to students who had finished their junior year and were basically just long job interviews. The experience you got wasn’t all that involved. You were there for a short time and we didn’t really know your capabilities. So the tasks were short, simple stuff without a lot of meat to them. Of course they were new to the intern and most felt they did something useful but you got so much more when you actually started as a new permanent hire. So, what I looked for when interviewing applicants who had had internships was a feeling about how well they performed in a team environment. Other than that, I didn’t place a lot of emphasis on that internship as engineering experience.
I am sure that one could find a job after taking a year off. You just might a much more limited set of opportunities, especially in the higher end of engineering jobs.