Hello! So question: I am weighing pros and cons of taking a gap year after I finish college. I plan on fast tracking and getting a BS / MS (or Meng if I end up not finding a field to study in) in 5 years(4 1/2 without a co op). Then I planned on taking a full year (12 monthes) to teach english abroad while earning a second masters online.
The 2nd masters is free because of my fathers job at a university(it will probably be an MBA or Information Systems) and it will be course work based. The 1st masters is in engineering (preferably material science) . I am taking about 16k debt for undergrad (not including any continuing student scholarships) .
Will Teaching abroad be a bad idea? For an employer?
Strikes me as odd to earn a master’s in materials science online with no hands on lab work. Honestly, I don’t see this path as helping your job search. Online degrees are still less respected by employers, and being further out of school with no engineering work experience won’t make job hunting easier.
Howdy! @intparent The engineering masters would be on campus, the second degree would be online. @bodangles while nothing is set in stone, I’m mainly curious to know if it would look bad to an employer if I were to spend a year away from my engineering studies.
You can typically get a good job with an undergrad engineering degree. Why don’t you major in the type of engineering you want to do to start with? Also, maybe look into a summer abroad while in college instead of the gap year.
But as @bodangles says, it is really too early to make much of a plan. Your perspective and desires could change A LOT in the next couple of year.
@boneh3ad Well its a coursework masters and since I can get it for free and I like to learn, it seems like something I’d like to do. (Who would turn down a free education right?) I’ve always been interested in the business aspect of engineering(although I’ve never done it so I don’t think I want to do it for a career) and I like information systems and writing code and designing programs (But I like to learn mainly what I want to study which you can’t get in an undergrad program). I would be doing for fun, not nessarily any professional reason. I also put it at the end of my educational journey so that in the event my interests change, there is no harm in not completing it.
If its too odd to have a second masters, I can just not put it on my resume unless its relevant to the job at hand. But I can’t exactly not put on my resume that I was not working or studying for a full year without arising suspicion. Would that be bad to an employeer?
@intparent their isn’t a material science undergraduate degree in Texas, but I like mechanical for all the same reasons. It just doesn’t include much chemistry for me, so, at the moment that is what my interest would be for grad school. If it doesn’t work out, I can always do the course work version (since I’m fast tracking).
My main question though is to know if the gap year (doing something that is unrelated to engineering) would look bad to an employeer. I don’t think it would be wise to save that question for my senior year of college since I would, ideally, like to take language classes in the language that I want to go to teach (so I could have 4 years of practice) .
Okay, but you can at least save it for junior year. I changed majors (one type of engineering to another) once by that point; some will have switched several times; others might have moved out of engineering entirely. Any planning you do at this point is vulnerable to just plain life happening between now and then. You can take language classes regardless.
I get the urge to plan and set things in stone, but sometimes planning isn’t possible. I don’t know where I’ll be living once I graduate college or what type of job I’ll be working. That bothers me, a compulsive planner, to no end and makes stuff like relationships and other forward-looking things impossible to forecast. But I just can’t do anything about it for now. It’ll get hashed out over the next year and I have to make my peace with that.
Not to willfully avoid your question about how employers will view it, but I’m a rising senior so my opinion on that won’t be the most relevant. I would guess you will have to do some serious selling of your skills gained from the program to show how they’ll make you a better candidate than a) someone who hasn’t had a year to forget engineering stuff or b) someone with a year+ of more relevant experience.
Many engineers are hired with a BS degree and then go on for their masters later, usually paid for by their employer. A gap year would be an interesting experience and I’ve known a few that have done it. It does make finding a job a little harder. You can still use your college recruiting office but if you are out of the area, it makes the interviewing a bit harder. you will also get questions as to your sincerity for engineering. Having a above average GPA, if that is the case, will help offset some of that.
I WOULD NOT recommend an MBA!!! If I saw that on your resume, it would be a quick trip to the round file. I want to hire ENGINEERS and the MBA gives me serious doubt as to your career intent. Not worth my time and effort to train a new engineer and then have them leave without getting much productivity from them. Also my experience, from being a new manager and actually hiring a MBA/engineer grad, was that they were looking for work that was “worthy” of their MBA and didn’t want the “trivial” engineering work. Never again!!! Later in your career, if that is the direction you want to go and you are on tract for it, then an MBA makes sense.
If you had co-op or internship experience, it would make a gap year more palatable to employers. And regarding who would turn down free education – look up the term “opportunity cost”. It may not be worth your time once you have an undergrad engineering degree.
@bodangles
Thank you, your opinion was really insightful! I never though of myself as an excessive planner until you pointed it out! I guess I can wait till junior year. (I’d prefer to have these questions off my mind freshman year, but I guess it can’t be helped. Especially if I have to get used to this in the future anyways).
@HPuck35
That was also really helpful. I guess at this point in my education, my priority should be to get work experience, actually get into my engineering major (I’m Going to Texas A&M), and earn an above average GPA. Because if I don’t meet those, then taking full year off of school for an unrelated industry may not be the smartest move.
Also thank you about the MBA warning! I guess I don’t need to include that second masters on my resume!
With this path, it would be 7 years before you tried to enter the job market as an engineer. 5 for BS/Masters, 1 gap year (working outside your major) and another 1 for 2nd degree unrelated to engineering. As a potential employer, I’d have questions about this path not showing me significant interest in working in the engineering field you initially graduated in - or interest in working at all. Having engineering internships/co-ops EACH year or summer of initial 5 year program would help show interest and ability in the engineering field. But the gap year outside outside the major and then another masters outside the initial major would have me scratching my head. Certainly wouldn’t pay you any more than I would have coming out of your 1st masters…
Leaving the MBA off your resume puts you in a position of having to explain what you did that year - when employers would expect you to have been working.
@JustGraduate Sorry for being vague. My intention was to earn the 2nd degree, while studying abroad. It is a 6 year plan in total (5 years BS / MEng and 1 year Abroad / Masters) . But I think I will take the advice given and focus on earning a good gpa freshman year and finding work experience to show my dedication to engineering.
Another way to do it is
Get a BS
Live abroad
Get the MS in engineering
Get a job
Get the second online MS while you are working
or
Get a BS…
but do a semester or year abroad or coop abroad.
Get the MS in engineering
Get a job
Get the second online MS while you are working
I would not recommend the gap year after the MS diploma…you want to use the services of your career office and that would be easier if you are still in school.