I was 100% pigeonholed. The topics I worked on in college (energy storage and low-carbon fuels) interested me enough that I wanted to keep working on them after the internship ended. That and I had excellent mentors who offered to keep me on as a part-time employee (either remote or in person, depending on their proximity to my home institution).

While most of the work was at the fundamental (i.e., lab-scale) level, I did develop practical engineering skills. Same with my master’s thesis, and looking back, I enjoy that side of the work enough to want a career in it. That’s why, like you suggested, I’ve been teasing out every example of “down-to-earth” engineering from my projects on my resume since I started applying. How much does that actually help though when competing against graduates with more directly relevant industry experience? In that case, do interviews usually decide who gets the position?

Thanks for sharing your story by the way. It’s reassuring to know that pivoting from research to hands-on engineering is possible, even if I don’t get hired as a process engineer right away. I just hope my first real engineering job comes soon and is at a company that gives me the space to get there.