<p>I'm currently a senior majoring in chemical engineering at Rice and I will be graduating in May. I have been worrying a lot recently about what I'll do once I leave college. The job search hasn't gone well for me ever since I began looking for internships at the beginning of junior year; I got a couple interviews with oil companies like Shell and ConocoPhillips, which were my ideal job, but they and almost all companies didn't give me offers afterward. I currently have only one job offer with the engineering consulting company where I interned last year, but I really don't want to have to take it. I would prefer either more hand-on engineering work or a business/pure consulting type job, but I fear that the opportunities for all such positions have already passed. Does anyone have any advice?</p>
<p>Well seems the economy isn’t improving seeing a Rice student being refused offers…</p>
<p>But I suggest you continue to apply for dream work places! You will probably be working there a long time so make sure you like the job and company.</p>
<p>If you can adapt more easily, then go to your internship workplace and try to make something new of it. Climb he ladder in an already familiar place wth an unfamiliar way.</p>
<p>I’m applying to rice this year!! Hope my economics major will be useful…</p>
<p>You have an offer, so that is good. I presume that your decision date is coming up sometime before the new year, so if you don’t have other positions on the horizon, I would recommend accepting the offer you already have in hand. You don’t want to graduate jobless when you had the opportunity to have gainful employment, even if you didn’t particularly want that job.</p>
<p>What you can do is accept the offer and spend about nine months at the company before beginning to apply to other companies. You could use your experience in consulting as a selling point, since most entry level people do not have that kind of experience, and after a year you would not have lost the skills you picked up during undergraduate. And you might find that you actually like the consulting work!</p>
<p>If, somehow, you do have more time, try expanding your search. Have you applied to oil services companies like Slumberger? You get to do similar work, but you might have more openings since they have more expansive recruiting operations - Shell and CP are likely looking for petroleum engineering students from top programs, so while you are getting an excellent ChemE degree, it’ll be a little tougher to get into the oil companies.</p>
<p>I’m having similar issues. I would absolutely love to work for one of the major oil companies, or even a company like Schlumberger or Nabors. However, I’m a Chemical engineering major at Tennessee Technological University, which is definitely not renowned like Rice. I haven’t been able to get any sort of internship or Co-op offer, and I have applied everywhere. I have a degree in Linguistics, I speak Spanish, Portuguese, and English, and I have a cumulative GPA of 3.71. I’d say take the offer you have and get some experience. I’m worried about not getting any internship experience before I graduate, so at least you have that going for you.</p>