Asking a Mech. Engineer, M.S. on His Story, Resume, and Job Search
By: Eva Yi Zheng
Tags: Masters Degree, Job Search, STEM, Mechanical Engineering, Resume

I am in software development, so my resume and job search tips might not apply to other industries. So I thought it would be fun to share the stories of my connections!

First in the series will be my best friend, Oliver! He is a mechanical engineer based in NYC and is finishing up his Master’s thesis as I am typing up this article. He was looking on Indeed, Glassdoor, and his college job site and was able to land a job in less than two months!

I am helpless when it comes to math. I failed my first math test in high school and it was just geometry. In college, I finally cared more about grades and asked him to tutor me in calculus, and miraculously, I got an A+. He is a man of magic!

How did you know that mechanical engineering is your calling? Why not another major? I remember that you were really good at coding and math back in high school.

I went to a small Lutheran Christian school from Pre-K through 8th grade. When I was in 6th grade, I had an amazing science teacher who did very fun experiments with the class. He was very young, very funny, and made me actually want to go to his class because I felt like I was actually learning something. (Most other classes I was either not too interested in or I already read ahead in the textbook and realized I already knew most of this stuff.) He had connections with FIRST Robotics competition, a high school robotics competition where every year a new game/objective is created and students from various schools would have a few months to put together a robot and compete at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan. He was able to enter our school into it (mind you, our team was full of middle school students), and we went up against high school students in the competition. I was part of this team and contributed a lot to the construction and coding of the robot. It was at this point when I realized that I wanted to do some sort of science-related job when I got older. Applied mathematics, building something from scratch, seeing the process of your work as it comes along and the euphoric feeling at the end when it’s complete is something that I wanted to experience over and over again at my job. Since then, I don’t think my resolve to work in engineering/science ever wavered. I did consider becoming a computer science major but felt like I wanted to pick a career that allowed me to be more physically active.

What were the deciding factors for you to go for a Master’s degree immediately after finishing a Bachelor’s degree?

I heard from my colleagues that getting a Master’s degree qualifies you for a lot of positions in the future that you would not be able to get with only a Bachelor’s. These positions are much higher paying than other jobs. It was basically an investment for future me.

How did you choose your topic for your thesis?

It was half assigned by my thesis advisor, and half chosen by me. My advisor gave a handful of options that she would like to see get done, and I picked the one that I seemed to think was most interesting at the time, which was a more computer program-based project and applying the program to do building energy analyses. I enjoyed my thesis work to an extent.

What was the opportunity cost, if any, for obtaining higher education?

I think job experience is single-handedly the most important thing for an adult when it comes to careers. My advice for college students is to find internships every summer because those experiences go a long way, much longer than any single test you take in college. The opportunity cost for college is the years that could have gone working at a company and gaining experience that way. Even if you start off as a waitress or a cashier at a fast-food restaurant, that experience, working with your boss, time management, and social skills, can never be replicated in higher education. I still do recommend higher education for people interested in fields that require a background in order to work. These are STEM fields usually. I knew a student from high school that was probably the single-handedly most talented person I’ve ever met when it comes to tinkering and building projects like robot arms and other cool stuff. His design and construction skills are second to none, but his opportunity cost was sacrificing all his grades. He then had trouble finding a good college. I hope he’s doing better now but the lesson learned is not to brush off education entirely but understand when and where is it needed.

What’s one memorable project that taught you beyond what was taught in class?

Probably the robotics project I mentioned earlier. At the age of 12–13, I learned through that robotics competition what it means to be responsible for your own work. It gave me time pressure, pushed me to do time management. It taught me how to multitask properly, how to ask others for help when I got stuck. I had to learn various different skills from many different sources. Some examples are physical tools such as an Allen wrench or a soldering iron, and programming tools like robotC, a C-based programming language used for specific robot equipment. I felt like I was using my brain to its maximum effort, something that I rarely felt in my childhood frankly.

What was the job search like? Any patterns you saw during the process? Do you think having a Master’s degree gave you an extra boost during the interviewing process?

That last one is a very good question. I think the employers were balancing whether it would be good to hire me as I was finishing my thesis or whether to hire someone else who had more free time, but I can’t be fully sure. I do think if I had finished my Master’s, I would have been better off. Regarding the job search, I definitely saw many patterns in terms of requirements and interview habits. Lots of employers either ghost you or respond very late. I had one company respond after I already accepted another offer. I think for my field, the interview questions are more of a formality and is secondary to your knowledge and background. I felt like the reason I was able to qualify for my current job is because a) I know enough background to perform most of my tasks with minimal onboarding b) I don’t seem like a sociopath. That’s why I think for STEM, displaying that you know your background information and that you understand your tasks goes a long way.

Lastly, what are some tips for anyone looking to go into STEM? Do you think someone who isn’t normally good at math will eventually “get it”?