<p>I recently graduated from an engineering school with a degree in petroleum engineering. I have a job lined up with an oil company and fully intend on working for 3-5 years but have to move away from all of my family and friends and am currently not enjoying the prospect of this. I would like to obtain a graduate degree to expand my future employment possibilities but obviously there is no oil in my hometown otherwise I would be working there instead. I was thinking of getting a Masters in Engineering Management/Industrial Engineering/Manufacturing Engineering or possibly an MBA to perhaps allow myself to be able to move back to my hometown and still obtain an engineering related management job. This leads me to my 2 questions:</p>
<p>1) How do grad schools look upon students applying for their courses who have little to no related coursework in the field?
2) How would an employee look upon someone with 5 years of unrelated engineering work who also has a masters degree in some sort of management related topic?</p>
<p>I feel like I could handle a transition to engineering management or an MBA if I worked hard enough at it but I just wonder how the school and an employer would look at it. What do you think?</p>