Should I delay my graduation ?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

I am a senior engineering Chemical Engineering and I am debating between graduating and trying to find a co-op/internship before graduation. I only have 2 more classes left to take to graduate and they are both technical electives, thus I can take them whenever I want. I will attend to the Engineering Expo next week at my school and hopefully I can get an internship/co-op offers. My question is if I don’t get any internship/co-op for the summer, should I take the remaining classes in summer and graduate? or should I delay my graduation and take those classes in Fall and try again at the Fall Engineering Expo?

I heard that it is extremely hard for fresh out graduate college students to find a job without prior experience (internship/co-op) and it also applies to engineering students.

Should I consider graduate school if I can’t find anything after graduation?

Here is a little bit about myself:

  1. Non-native English speaker—> limit in communication. This is my weakness and it is frustrating. Although, some people said that my English is good for a person who has been here for only 5 years, I feel like my English is not good enough for me to talk to others confidentially. I understand 99% of what I listen to, however I cannot response to the question being asked fluently. I sometime have to rephrase my answer couple times to make my answer understandable.
  2. U.S citizen.
  3. First generation college student—> no networking
  4. GPA: 3.94/4.00 --> I am 90% sure that I will graduate with Sum Cum Claude honor.
  5. Attend to ABET school
    6.I don’t have any relevant working experience beside working for a professor as an undergraduate lab assistant since Jan 2015 (1 month).
  6. Hardworking and self-motivated person
  7. Not a ice-breaker type of person i.e I won’t come up to strangers to talk to them. However, I am very friendly once I get to know them and I am willing to do anything to help them within my capability.
    I am really worrying about my future.
    I started another thread back in November after I was not successful in getting any internship/coop offers at Fall Engineering Expo and I received lots of helpful advice. I hope that you guys can help me making decision in this situation. I appreciate any comments.
2

From what I have heard from the Career Center at my university, the job fairs are not the most likely place to get the internships. Your school’s career center probably has online resume postings. make sure you go there. They also have mock interview training. Make sure to go to those sessions and refine your interview skills. Also, realize that it is likely that you can continue to take advantage of the Career Center even after you graduate. It is in their interests to help you find a position. So, if you don’t find an internship over the summer, then finish your degree as soon as you can and make job hunting your full time job.

The question you ask about graduate school is pretty easy to answer. Unless you really want to go for reasons of your own, don’t do it right away. Keep looking for a job and once you have worked for a while, you will see if graduate schol is important for your career.