CAREER FOCUS
Beyond the Degree
For students and early career professionals, there are multiple strategies that will give a newly earned engineering degree some additional heft.
Written by Robin L. Flanigan
Mechanical engineers have a reputation for being curious, creative, and able to work well with others. But what exactly can boost the power of an ME degree and set one engineer apart from the others?
It comes down to pushing boundaries to reap high rewards, according to Carolyn Conner Seepersad, a mechanical engineering professor at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
“Big innovations and game-changing products typically require someone to take risks and perhaps stretch out of their comfort zone into new areas,” she said.
That will expand both your knowledge base and abilities—two things that increase marketability and job opportunities, noted Thomas D. Traubert, vice president and chief engineer at Engineering Design & Testing Corp.
Here are some other ways students and young professionals can give their degree more heft:
Work with a team. This shows you “enjoy collaborating, have good communication skills, and are open-minded enough to give and take with people—to make suggestions and listen to suggestions as well,” said Conner Seepersad. “That’s not something you can just learn from a book. You really have to do it.”
Students should check with their universities on the availability of team-based projects, such as building robotics or a Formula 1 race car, she added.
When Traubert sees evidence of teamwork on a resume, he knows the person “can communicate with different personalities and coordinate tasks among different people, as opposed to being in a cubicle and doing calculations all day.”
Don’t snub entry-level work. Even if it’s at a summer job that may not involve engineering, it just might pay off. That’s what happened one summer for Traubert, who recalls working at a manufacturing facility “doing all the nasty, dirty work for the maintenance crew.” He learned about the company, developed interpersonal skills, and toward the end of his time there was given more meaningful tasks tied to engineering work.
As a result, he not only received a great review, but a job offer to start when he graduated in four months—and his start date with the company went on record as the start of his summer stint.
That made his beginning salary “a lot higher than the other [offers] because they knew what they were getting,” Traubert said.
Network. A “powerful” way students can raise their professional profile, while building confidence that can lead both to career and personal growth, is to engage in internships, coops, and competitions—“anything that gets you engaged with people outside of the university,” Conner Seepersad said.
“I can teach somebody the technical aspects of this job if they have the right attitude, but I can’t teach the attitude even if they have the right technical background.”
—Thomas D. Traubert, vice president and chief engineer at Engineering Design & Testing Corp.
Now that Traubert is the one doing the hiring, he can appreciate what an intern brings to the table, including experience working through scheduling or budget constraints, learning to work with different dispositions as well as navigating assignments in “the real world.”
While at university, get to know professors with visits and requests for advice during office hours, Conner Seepersad encouraged.
And don’t forget about making connections with other students, as “they can be valuable resources later on in your career,” she said.
Get comfortable with AI. You can prefer to work with your hands, but also be sure to get exposure to, and experience with, artificial intelligence, Conner Seepersad advised.
Otherwise, “your runway can be somewhat short if you don’t also embrace some of the computing machine learning waves that are coming through the profession and learn how to leverage those to enhance what you’re doing,” she explained. “Engineers of the not-too-distant future are going to be more competitive if they can use these types of tools to add value to the work they’re doing.”
Earn a P.E. license. Obviously, you need a mechanical engineering degree first, but know that getting licensed as a professional engineer “opens a lot of opportunities to do things you wouldn’t normally be allowed to do,” Traubert said.
Many of the firms he has worked with over the years required a P.E. license and having that license also allowed Traubert to do consulting engineering work. For the past 18 years, he has participated in forensic investigations—helping to determine, for example, why a pressure vessel may fail.
Having your P.E. license allows you to serve as a testifying expert retained by attorneys, “so that opens a whole other category of services and broadens your career,” he said.
Keep a good attitude. MEs who stand out aren’t only willing to embrace challenges, but eagerly initiate solutions rather than waiting for directions.
“I can teach somebody the technical aspects of this job if they have the right attitude, but I can’t teach the attitude even if they have the right technical background,” Traubert said.
Robin L. Flanigan is an independent writer in Rochester, N.Y.
© 2025 The American Society of Mechanical Engineers. All rights reserved.