I’ve honestly never heard of a masters in engineering management until recently. Many of my engineering friends were the same way. I’m currently a MechE student almost halfway through undergrad. Communication and teamwork are two things I feel safe and comfortable with. I’m also planning on getting a minor in engineering product development.
What are the benefits to getting a MEM degree? Will I be guaranteed a management/leadership role upon graduation that makes use of my masters? Or will I be out of luck and have to work a regular bachelor’s degree job? If it’s so unheard of, is it “easier” to get into in theory? What are the financial benefits? Cost vs. benefit?
Benefits? early in your career as a ME, there are NONE. You are not going to be placed into an engineering management position. To manage other engineers, you have to first prove yourself by being a working engineer.
It’s better to start working with your BS, and a few years down the road, look into it as an option. Then you’ll need to decide between a MEM and a MBA degree. Where your career is going at that point, will help decide which degree is a better fit. Also at that point, your company is likely willing to pay your tuition cost.
The engineering Management degree could even hurt your chances of getting employment. As stated above, you need experience as an engineer first. I would quickly round file any resume with a management degree looking for an engineering position. I wanted someone focused on engineering.
It is important to remember that colleges love their own programs and can always point to that one student who got the impossible job with the degree. But they are often wrong. Engineering Management (Or any management degree) should never be taken without a few years of relevant experience, because jobs managing engineers always require that experience, degree or no. Depending on the school and degree, there might be a few jobs in consulting willing to hire you, but those are few and far between. And, as @HPuck35 noted, regular engineering jobs will often refuse to even look at people with management degrees applying to entry-level engineering jobs - why hire someone who is so obviously just marking time until a management job comes up?
Get a job. Learn the field. In a few years, you will have learned what job you want and what combinations of experience and degrees will get you there. There is no need to rush blindly.
To be fair, the engineering Management degree could be quite useful once you have the experience in engineering and are looking to move to management.
Also realize that many companies now have a track that pays their top engineers as much as engineering managers. Therefore, you may want to stay in engineering unless you are striving to be CEO (or there abouts)
I was an engineering manager in the middle third of my career. I grew tired of it and went back into engineering where I quickly made it to the top level. Much more fun and the pay was actually higher than the non executive manager positions. By returning to engineering it also allowed me to retire early and do the occasional consulting job. Many more consulting engineering jobs than management consulting jobs in my field.