<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>
<p>You are really limiting yourself by not being willing to move. I wish I knew where you were from, because that would matter. IE, if you want to get back to Des Moines, then an MBA is probably not right for you. However, there are plenty of opportunities for MBAs in cities like Chicago, San Fran, NYC, etc.</p>
<p>I really think you would be doing yourself a serious disservice by not taking the petroleum engineering job. At worst, you should accept it and see how you like it.</p>
<p>Answers:</p>
<p>1) Your chances at a good MBA program are slim to none....much closer to none. Your problem there is not coursework. A petroleum engineering degree would prepare you well for the MBA coursework. However, with no post-grad work experience you would not be very employable and thus MBA programs don't want you.</p>
<p>2) I still think your problem here is work experience. Engineers with 10 to 20 yrs of experience probably aren't going to take well to being told what to do by someone with no work experience. That being said, I'm sure those Masters in Engineering degrees feed into jobs (which I would hope would be slightly better than the related undergrad jobs), and that is your best bet. You should post on the engineering forums for that though. An MBA is definitely not right for you...yet.</p>
<p>An MBA would help if he wants to totally change career directions.</p>
<p>True; engineering managers require the work experience. In technical management nothing beats experience, not even an MBA.</p>
<p>Still, if after a few years the work and life aren't going in a direction he would like an MBA could help shift it. I went to school 3 hours from my home town and thought it would be depressing and that I wouldn't like it, I ended up living there for 4 years after I graduated because I liked it so much. 3 years ago I moved 2400 miles from home for work and haven't looked back. I think it all depends, and you can't know for sure until you try it.</p>