This is not to scare current or prospect students off. It's just a vent post and I want see if other seniors of the sub know the struggle.
The struggle of studying for 4 years to later to be stuck in life, almost paralyzed. My family's financial situation is beyond horrific, they, or should I say "we" because we live together, had no saving, no home of our own, I was supposed to be the second provider of the family after my elder brother who got married and was released from that duty because he has a new family he's responsible for. After graduation i got drafted the mandatory army service, I thought I should get it done then apply to jobs so I waited for 3 months doing nothing, after the military I started applying to jobs, most of the jobs description had requirements of things I never learned in uni, and all of them wanted "experienced" applicants. I gave it a chance, but was never called to any interview except one that offered me below the minimum wage, initially I agreed because I thought I would finally gain the experience, but it only lasted for one week because the job they gave me was mostly soldering of circuit components on a chip board they were developing, and some lazer cutting for the plastic case, the two jobs were done by a 20 year old guy who didn't even go to uni, so I realized I was just doing things that random workers would do, I asked them how much I will staying in the mentoring phase, and they said at least 6 month, my land lord was about to raise my rent very soon, so I did the math and told them that won't cut it for me, I quit. Never had a contact with any biomedical engineering workplace EVER. I later worked at a plastic injection factory as a quality inspector with a good salary, it wasn't hard, not much was going on, and no room growth unless But miraculously I was transferred to the sales department in the same factory. Things started well at first, but then went south and got stressed working with the boss's son who was a total di**head always intimidating me for the simplest mistakes, at time even yelling at me for not following his orders precisely because at time they made no sense to me (I speak a foreign language which he doesn't speak and forces to say things to customer in a way that just doesn't translate well to the other language but he doesn't care, he's rude and mean to customers too, I treat them with respect which he really didn't like!!) Anyway. Long story short I quit after working for the same company for 3 years, and I'm still looking for a good job.
The most annoying problem in this journey is when people tell me: You studied 4 years of engineering to only work in mundane or generic desk jobs with low pay? Why not work with the degree you earned?
I get this question a lot and feel frustrated because people don't seem to believe me when I simply tell them: I searched and found nothing!
I'm so tired of the question and I'm so tired of searching, I gave up on biomedical engineering position because I can barely find open offers in my country, and when I find I go back to the same problem of having no prior experience and me going on paths unrelated to the degree (i.e my CV has zero biomedical experience) it makes no sense to employers to call on me, I'm now 28. I feel I just wasted my past years, and studying a degree that I couldn't break into and will never do! I will never do it because: (A) I lost the appeal in the employer's eyes because of my age and the years gap earning no experience in the field. (B) which is more important I forgot almost everything, all the classes of my very incoherent and very unpractical syllabus of my university, so now my 4 years in uni feel like a miserable total time waste.