I’m in a bit of a situation. I’m about graduate with a degree in petroleum engineering from Penn State during arguably the worst downturn in the history of the industry. Seemed like a great idea when I chose it. I’m from a rural PA town so the shale boom was huge around my area. After freshman year at Penn State I transferred to USC but did not like it at all so returned home to PSU after a year there. Didn’t have an internship so the job market is miserable. My summer 2015 internship got rescinded due to falling gas prices and the company pulling their intern program. I’m going to graduate from Penn State with around a 3.5, but only had a 3.0 at USC. Now I want to go to grad school for computer engineering but don’t think I’m nearly qualified for a good program. Meng preferably, I have no interest in a Phd. I know programs like MIT and Stanford are out of reach, but I’d still like to attend a program near the top 10. I’m also looking into the military, and then attend grad school after. My question to you is if there is anything I can do to make myself competitive at good programs. Should I possibly consider the military route and take classes while I’m there? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
Coming into a Computer Engineering masters is not a complete moonshot but it will be difficult, this is assuming you can build an argument for why you’ve chosen computer engineering. Since your background is not computer/electrical engineering related, most programs would give you a conditional acceptance that will require you to take undergraduate level computer engineering courses that won’t count towards the master’s degree before you take any graduate level classes.
Your GRE score will also factor in, but your GPA is a positive point for your case.