<p>I'll be graduating this winter with a Masters in Electrical Engineering, GPA: 3.85 (undergrad in Mathematics: 3.3). My experience consists of three summer internships (one with NASA, the other two with an electrical engineering consultant firm) and 2 years of teaching various electrical engineering courses at the college I currently attend. My ultimate goal is to earn either an MBA or a JD as soon as possible after graduating this winter, but I am concerned about my financial situation. What jobs are available to someone in my position to best convey into a (very near) future MBA or JD degree (particularly ones where a company would be more likely to pay for my school)? I would try to enter B-school or L-school immediately if finances weren't a concern.</p>
<p>Larger companies are more likely to have tuition reimbursement programs than smaller companies, I think. Many companies will list their benefits on their website with their job openings, so you can search for tuition reimbursement.</p>
<p>MBAs are general and could apply to almost any company that hires EEs. </p>
<p>For a company to pay for a JD, I would suggest looking for companies that have a large patent portfolio and do a lot of patent work. I used to work for a company that would occasionally send an engineer to law school (part-time while working) to become a patent attorney. The company had a significant patent licensing business. The engineers selected to go to law school typically had a lot of experience as inventors who had their own patents filed.</p>
<p>The best way to get a company to send you for more schooling is to be a great employee. So, make sure to apply yourself fully to your work as an engineer.</p>
<p>I sincerely appreciate the feedback! I favor the idea of law school over an MBA because, quite frankly, I find the topic of law (specifically intellectual property/patent) to be much more interesting. As I stated before, my concern is finances and I was unaware if tuition reimbursement was even an option in law school, so thank you for the feedback. In the coming months, I will be attempting to begin setting up informative interviews for companies in the Denver area; do you suggest I contact law firms relaying my interest?</p>
<p>I thought I might mention that for my senior thesis in undergrad, I invented a floor embedded with piezoelectric materials to create electricity with the application of human footsteps- never got it patented, but received an offer from a European publication company.</p>
<p>Once again, thanks for the reply! Any other input from anyone who cares to chime in is greatly appreciated!</p>