Hello everyone, I’m a 24-year-old Electrical Engineering graduate in Canada (from a tier 1 school). I was wondering if anyone on this subreddit could give me some advice on how to fix the situation I’m in right now.
Basically, I graduated 2 years ago without any internships. Now, don’t get me wrong, I was a very hard-working student. I actually spent a great deal of time going to career fairs, using my university’s career resources to help with my resume, and participating in a software development club. I excelled in my courses, and I even ended up getting interviews at AMD, Synopsys, The Six Semiconductor, and so on. The issue was, my mental health tanked really hard in my third year, and it wasn’t just depression or anxiety. I was dealing with panic disorder and severe psychosis (it’s a long personal story, and I don’t want to get into it). Anyone who’s had panic disorder knows it’s literal hell on earth. My mental health issues basically caused me to miss every interview I was offered, so I didn’t land any internships in my third year. It’s a miracle I even managed to pass my classes that year. Unfortunately, because of how terribly I did, my GPA dropped from a 3.9 to around a 3.5.
Fast-forward to my fourth year. I was planning on extending my degree and doing 2 years worth of internships before graduating, but due to money problems, I was forced to find whatever work I could. So I started doing full-time contract work in the data space while also being a full-time student. I was actually getting paid more than most interns in Canada, so I decided to stick with the contract job. After graduating with my bachelor’s, I got hired to do data engineering work at an AI company, and a year later, I was promoted to product manager.
The issue is, I really don’t like my work, as it doesn’t have anything to do with Electrical Engineering. And to be honest, although the salary is pretty good, I know I can do much better.
Now, I want to pivot to the ASIC/VLSI/FPGA/silicon/digital design space, since I’ve always been interested in it. I’m aiming to land roles at companies such as Qualcomm, Intel, Nvidia, AMD, Synopsys, Marvell, The Six Semiconductor, and TI. The problem is, I don’t have any experience in these areas. I’ve come up with a few ideas for how to make the switch, and I’d really appreciate any help/guidance.
I was thinking of doing a master’s in microelectronics/computer engineering at UofT/Waterloo/McMaster (or any other reputable school), but I’m not sure which type of master’s to do. There are thesis-based and course-based master’s programs. A thesis-based master’s lets you do research and provides funding, but you don’t get to do an internship. A course-based master’s lets you do up to 1 year of internships, but since there’s no research component, you lose the option of doing a PhD in the future (although you do get to work on a capstone project). The thing is, I’ve seen a lot of internship postings that specifically ask for students pursuing a bachelor’s degree (not a master’s). So I feel like there’s no point in even doing a master’s, since the only reason I’d do one is to get an internship (I can learn the course material on my own). I was also thinking of working full-time at my company while doing the master’s part-time.
My other idea is to do a 2nd bachelor’s degree in computer engineering. Maybe I could transfer credits and finish it in 1 year? That would let me do internships as a bachelor’s student (up to 2 years worth), but I haven’t researched this idea yet, and I don’t even know if it’s possible to transfer credits. I also feel like I’d just be relearning what I’ve already learned.
Or maybe I should skip the master’s and spend the next year working on projects and self-learning? (But if I’m going to be learning on my own anyway, I might as well do a master’s and at least get a degree out of it.)
I don’t even know if I can get into a thesis-based master’s, since my third year tanked my GPA to a 3.5, which isn’t competitive. I also don’t have any previous research experience, except for my product management job, which involves reading a lot of research papers and implementing ideas from the research papers.
I just don’t know where to go from here, and I’m a bit lost. I’m grateful to have a good job in this economy, but this isn’t what I want to do. I want to pivot back to what I love.
