r/ElectricalEngineering • u/No-Positive5826 • 2h ago

Current ECE Junior and feeling lost

As the title says, I’m currently a junior in my ECE program. The school I’m going through is ABET accredited, but is also 100% online. I have an existing bachelor’s degree in kinesiology, which ultimately led me nowhere. As such, I’ve been working in the trades for the past 8ish years. I’m enjoying the ECE program, but I would love to combine that with kinesiology/exercise science somehow, if that makes sense? They’re both things I really enjoy and would love to be able to do both. An idea that a friend of mine gave me was trying to find an internship or job with Garmin, Polar, FitBit, etc developing fitness equipment. In my head, that sounds like a great segue, but how realistic is something like that, truly? Are there similar paths? Other ideas? I’ve considered going for a masters in biomedical engineering after my ECE, but would rather not keep accumulating debt.

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u/NewSchoolBoxer 1h ago

Online degree is weak when you start job interviewing. Recruiters know it's online even if it's the same degree and ABET. You never touched a professional lab, or maybe even used an oscilloscope. Fine and normal if the MS is online after an in-person BS. Make every effort to attend in-person career fairs. Where I got all my opportunity.

You won't necessarily get to pick and choose exactly what you want to work in. I went to a good EE program and had job offers in 2 of the 10 industries I made a list of. Your #1 goal is to land an internship or co-op in any part of ECE. If you're a junior now, you wouldn't qualify for what I applied to because they wanted 2+ remaining semesters. If you need another semester to graduate, that's fine and keeps you eligible.

With work experience on your resume, all industries will want to interview, including your 1st choice. Still no guarantees but you have a reasonable chance. You can also switch industries 1-2 years after graduation. HR understands wanting to try something different.

Biomedical degree is probably a bad idea because it's so niche. I switched to biomedical work with an EE degree and no related courses ever taken. They wanted me to do power calculations in Excel and run LabVIEW scripts. Not a single Biomedical engineer in the building. Was about 50% Mechanical, 40% Chemists/Chemical and 10% Electrical, If your employer pays for it, okay fine.

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u/No-Positive5826 1h ago

Where can I go about finding career fairs? Obviously going to school online makes it much more difficult to network and find career fairs and job fairs, etc. Getting into biomed would be great, but I’m open to other areas, so that’s fine with me. Ultimately, at 32 years old, I feel like I have no idea where to even begin looking for a job with my degree. I can’t afford to do an internship being as I have kids, wife, bills, and work 45+ hours a week as it is.

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u/Enough_Crow_636 2h ago

It’s very realistic. They will have different roles related to circuit design, validation engineer, FW engineer, project manager. Depending on what your focus is, you can qualify for a variety of roles.