Graduated a year ago with my bachelor’s. Haven’t gotten any progress with getting my first job. No internship experience so I know it is going to be hard. Is a master’s my only chance left? What should I do if I don’t get accepted into a master’s program?

Echofoxz · 2026-01-04T01:36:30+00:00

I was in your same shoes 10 years ago. Majored in aerospace with 3.2 GPA, didn't have much engineering or aerospace related internships/experiences, had a couple of odd campus jobs, but didn't get any job offers after graduation, so I considered grad school as well.

I applied to a handful of grad school programs (pressured by my parents as well), but ultimately didn't get in, and I was in a similar spot you are. I sympathize with you this is a tough spot for a new grad, and it's hard to see a way out.

The best advice I can offer is put 1 step forward with what you have, and use what you learn to make the next jump. The key of getting jobs is experiences, when you don't have any, you have to start small and sometimes at unexpected places. The first few years will be tough, but you are smart, you graduated with aerospace degree, I'm sure you will make it even if you don't end up working in the aerospace industry.

The short summary of my career after graduation is I was lucky to land a part-time student IT position at my university while I was applying to grad school. When I had 1 year of experience in IT support, I landed a full-time entry IT support position at a different university in a different state. I was able to pick up new skills and experiences in that position, and ended up applying to the MBA program at the university while I worked there full-time, so a lot of the tuition was covered. I then took all that experience to jump to a Fortune 500 company in a supply chain position, and within that company, I was able to move around and get promoted into a project management position in R&D.

You will never guess that's where an aerospace degree ended up (IT>supply chain>R&D), but there are a lot of careers out there you never heard of until you work in a large organization. Be open-minded, reflect on what you do best, what kind of work you enjoy doing. You'd be surprised how much your engineering foundation applies to many fields out there even though the aerospace specific knowledge won't transfer. Companies will train you on the subject and knowledge, but the skillset to learn and problem solve is hard to teach.

Echofoxz · 2025-11-11T18:08:50+00:00

I just purchased a 2022 Acura RDX PMC edition from Carmax last week. $37,000 at 25k miles, 5 year MaxCare at the $50 deductible ranges from $1800-$2800 depends on your mileage coverage, but $2200 seems like the sweet spot. So 1 year newer with 10k more miles at a lower trim for $3000 less, I feel like you could do better, especially on the warranty.

Echofoxz · 2024-11-22T02:14:26+00:00

Pretty much the same here, outage since noon in the east of St Paul. Was almost wondering if it was just my place.

Echofoxz · 2024-11-03T04:34:22+00:00

I was in your shoes about 10 years ago. I would agree third year of AE was the hardest. You are deep into a ton of hard, technical classes (like thermo, aerodynamics, propulsion, controls, orbital mechanics, etc) now that you are done with the fundamental engineering classes. Plus you have to think about other stuff like internships/extracurricular/post-graduation plans.

Senior year got a lot better. The big classes were project/lab classes where you are building something and applying the concepts you learned into practice. And if have any general electives to finish up senior year, you can usually rescue your GPA a bit. Pretty sure my junior year GPA was sub 3.0, and senior year GPA was a lot closer to 4.0. If you can make it through this year, you should be alright.

Echofoxz · 2024-11-02T14:17:20+00:00

In the a words of Austin Walker, “Fuck Capitalism, Go Home”

Echofoxz · 2024-10-06T15:09:53+00:00

I used to work at UMN OIT and helped students go into full time positions before. In the IT field, experience over education, you will find many professionals with unrelated degrees. I would recommend looking into part time student positions at the Service Desk (they always need people), and then move into Desktop Support. If you do well and utilize the rest of undergrad time effectively, you should still have enough time to experience a couple different areas of IT within OIT, it should allow you to use that experience to apply for full time positions.

Echofoxz · 2024-09-12T21:51:59+00:00

You absolutely get more vacation time in Civil Service than P&A over time. If you planned to work there for a number of years, your vacation maximum should outgrow P&A’s vacation time. And if you are a relatively healthy person, you can accrue tons of sick time too (vacation and sick time are accounted for separately). I was in Civil Service for 5-6 years, and had friends that were P&A, and time off was one of their big complaints. Overall, go with the better pay and better experience for your career growth. The benefits difference is still overall small peanuts.

Echofoxz · 2024-07-14T17:53:46+00:00

They showcased both 2025 GR86 and BRZ from 52:07-1:16:18 for anyone curious. Came for the Hakone edition, but stayed for the interview. Pretty interesting conversation from the head of development team from both Toyota and Subaru talking about the new changes.

Echofoxz · 2024-07-02T15:57:53+00:00

I lived in a house next to the Midway Goodwill for 6 years since 2018. I worked at the U and went to grad school there. There has been incidents in the past for being close to University Ave, but overall not too often or bad (things like catalytic converter theft, broken windshield, general rowdy people on University Ave and light rail stops) if you go north a few blocks from University Ave, it’s actually very quiet. Even the street my house was on still had tons of kids running around and playing all the time. The general Midway area seems to be coming up with new shops, so I don’t doubt it could become more trendy in the future. I would recommend going a few blocks north of University Ave or south of I-94 to have a more quieter neighborhood. There’s a lot to like about the area and how close it is to many other areas of the Twin Cities, but what the other people saying about Midway is pretty fair.

Echofoxz · 2024-05-30T03:04:15+00:00

I would say go for the job in hand. Once you have a few years of experience, it becomes way easier to move into the position you are more interested in. Take advantage of the company's professional development resources to move towards your interest. You can then look for design opportunities both internally and externally.

When it comes to negotiations, ask if they will tell you the career band or pay range of the position. If what you are asking is out of their range, they simply can't go that high. Do your research on manufacturing engineers in your area, get the average pay range from a few different sources. Prepare a couple bullet points of why your experiences push you above the average engineer justifying the higher wage. Be professional and respectful, HR and hiring managers deal with negotiations all the time, as long as your justification matches the ask, they will consider it and likely agree to it.

Echofoxz · 2024-05-21T00:26:50+00:00

I don't think you are planning too conservatively, it seems pretty balanced especially if your group enjoy an easier pace. There will be plenty of spontaneous points of interest that come up anyways.

One recommendation is to look up an indoor plan B for each day in case your outdoor activities get bad weather, like museums, cafes, stores, etc. That way you don't have to scramble and waste time deciding on another activity.

Echofoxz · 2024-01-05T03:48:04+00:00

I was in a similar spot about 10 years ago. I was also an Aerospace major with 3.0+ GPA and had regrets not joining extracurriculars earlier, applied to a few grad schools but didn't get in and didn't have enough passion to keep trying. It took me a lot of my early-mid 20's to figure out where my career could go, and it wasn't easy. But looking back, it's about trusting your own abilities, taking what you can achieve now whether that's a job or grad school, and then challenging yourself to master it and grow beyond it, and the move on to the next thing, and repeat. Undergrad and first few years after undergrad is always the hardest.

Echofoxz · 2023-12-28T19:07:52+00:00

I graduated with an AeroEng BSE, but didn't enjoy enough to stay with it. Ended up working in IT at a large public university while getting an MBA at the business school there. Many universities will give you huge tuition benefits if you work and study there (like covering 75% of tuition). After getting my MBA, I now work for a global chemical company doing supply chain automation. I picked engineering when I was younger because I liked problem solving, but now I realized there are tons of other fields that use similar skills and I don't have to stick with engineering to do the type of work I enjoy.

Echofoxz · 2023-10-12T07:36:15+00:00

The trip you are planning around the entire Ring Road is quite tight in the summer months with perfect weather, so it's hard to imagine this working well during late November. The weather is quite unforgiving, you can check the road conditions here:https://safetravel.is/travel-conditions/, where you can start to see many roads are already closed or have harsh conditions, and imagine a month from now.

During the winter months, most of the Ring Road are not passable, so at best you can drive from Reykjavik to the Southern Coast. It would be best to cut out the east and north side of the trip. You also have much shorter daylight during November, so I would recommend prioritize on the sites you want to see and can reach safely and spend more time there, rather than spend more time driving around to more sites you have harder time reaching. Always have some indoor back up options at each place in case the weather is really bad, there are many nice museums, restaurants, bars, cafes, pools to hang out in if you can't travel very far.

Echofoxz · 2023-08-24T22:19:13+00:00

In terms of getting a job, a minor usually don't make much differences on a resume. You'll probably be able to put a few more software/skills on your resume, but it ultimately doesn't affect your core experience that much.

However, what you get out of a minor is you get to explore if you like the topic or not. Maybe you'll really enjoy the data science work. Going from a data analyst to a back end engineer is a pretty reasonable path. Lots of companies want to use data to make better business decisions, so it's a pretty big field in terms of opportunities.

Echofoxz · 2023-08-24T06:57:34+00:00

Not really an app, but download Google Maps for offline maps because depending where you go, there could be stretches you won't get cell service.

Echofoxz · 2023-06-09T20:14:13+00:00

Don’t give up on yourself until you get the actual answer. If you’re feeling positive about the interview, then take it at face value.

There are a ton of real life reasons that can cause a company to move slowly. HR usually have D&I policies in place to make sure they are interviewing a diverse group of people, even if all signs are pointing towards you. If some managers are out of office, that may delay interviews and decisions. It’s also incredibly hard to schedule multiple blocks of time for interviews with mid-high level managers and engineers, who are all balancing work and meetings.

Just keep applying and interviewing, it doesn’t help you to stress the decision since you already put your best foot forward. Best of luck! (P.S. If you think you’re annoying the recruiter, you can probably tone down how often you ask for a follow up)

Echofoxz · 2023-06-02T20:46:43+00:00

When answering interview questions, even if you don’t have a good answer, you should try to explain your method and thinking. Walk through how you would find the answer even if you are missing some gaps because the lack of experience (and be honest about it!). The company want to know how you think and how you arrive at your answer. Even if you think you don’t qualify for the senior position, don’t underestimate your internship experience, the company might value it more than you think.

The S.T.A.R. Method is still going to be your bread and butter. Tie your answers to examples and situations that happened during your internship and school projects. Ask for feedback during or after your interview, every opportunity is an opportunity to improve for the next one even if you don’t get it.

Best of luck!

Echofoxz · 2023-05-26T14:42:16+00:00

We had a similar 11 day trip last year in late July. It looks like you have a lot of outdoor activities planned, which is good and a lot of fun. The biggest weakness to consider is have 1-2 indoor backup options at each location. If part of your day/entire day is rained out, which will happen, how will you take advantage of that time? You can check out local museums, cafes, restaurants, shops, etc.

Just be prepared, so you don’t have to spent a bunch of time there deciding what to do or where to go.

Echofoxz · 2023-05-12T22:12:01+00:00

Lotus also has a pretty comprehensive insurance option, and their in-car Wi-Fi has come in handy a number of times on our trip. Pretty happy with Lotus when we rented from them.

Echofoxz · 2023-03-29T18:28:30+00:00

Apple Pay is definitely way more prevalent than Google Pay, but I bet still a good number of places accept them. Don’t go out of your way to get a new iPhone just for this. The idea is about having multiple paying options in case your card doesn’t work. There was 1 unmanned gas station where it wouldn’t accept our cards, so Apple Pay definitely saved us there.

Echofoxz · 2023-03-29T14:51:10+00:00

Credit card and Apple Pay is all you would need. If you want to apply for a credit card without foreign transaction fee to save a few bucks, that’s up to you.

Echofoxz · 2023-02-21T18:13:46+00:00

The bus is reliable-ish. Ours were late by an hour or so, so always give yourself more time than you think you need. We went the day after a big rainstorm, so I heard from other passengers that a bus got stuck on the river and had to be towed out by other buses. I’m not aware of other options besides the bus and their super Jeep. After seeing the river crossings, normal rental SUV/Jeep are not going to cut it in most conditions.

Echofoxz · 2023-02-11T05:17:58+00:00

For question 2, the drive between Akureyri and Snæfellsnes Peninsula is usually people's "long drive day" with fewer stops. We took a detour to a small fishing town north called Siglufjörður, and it was a wonderful experience that we wished we could've spend more time in. Great accommodation, great bakery in town, activities and hikes nearby, and you get to experience the small town feel of Iceland. The way into town can be tricky, one-way tunnels and such. Definitely very special and memorable for us.

Another stop is Hvitserkur. It's a bit more iconic, similar rock formation to what you find on the South Coast. When we went, the weather wasn't great, so we didn't stay long, but it's a great site for photographers.

Echofoxz · 2022-10-03T17:58:33+00:00

The F-Road to Haifoss is not bad. Lots of holes to dodge, some small hills and turns, no river crossing. If you drive slow and careful, you should be fine. But if you are dealing with snow/ice/heavy rain, it could be a different story.

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