Chapter 2: Degrees and Dilemmas

If you major in mechanical engineering and don’t want to work on the factory floor, your diploma from Northwestern might as well be a participation trophy—good for nothing but collecting dust.

I remember staring at my framed diploma, with the wildcat mascot in the corner, wondering if it meant anything more than proof I’d survived four years of all-nighters and overpriced textbooks. The job market didn’t care about my GPA or my senior project; they just wanted to know if I could clock in at the assembly line Monday morning.

Looking at the job fair listings for manufacturing companies, my heart twisted with frustration. My hands were sweaty as I scrolled through the endless postings.

I scrolled through Indeed and LinkedIn, each job more depressing than the last. The postings were pure corporate-speak: “dynamic team environment” (translation: get yelled at for eight hours), “must lift 50 lbs” (so much for all those calculus classes), “competitive compensation” (hope you like ramen and dollar-menu McDonald’s).

Monthly salary: $1,200, with performance bonuses. Housing included, but meals not. Take-home pay: $3,000+—if you believe in unicorns.

I did the math on a napkin and snorted. Even in Chicago, $1,200 barely covers rent, let alone student loans. The 'performance bonus' sounded like a Bigfoot sighting—just enough hope to keep desperate grads dangling.

Is that bonus for saving the CEO’s cat from a burning building? Even in Cleveland, they wouldn’t hustle new grads this hard.

I pictured myself in a hard hat, dodging sparks and angry foremen, all for a bonus that might cover my cell phone bill. My friends joked that Cleveland was tough, but at least they didn’t pretend these jobs were glamorous.

Monthly salary: $1,000, meals and housing included, with 'room for growth.'

That factory’s so tiny, and you’re telling me there’s room to climb the corporate ladder? Sure—maybe up to assistant to the assistant manager.

I imagined myself stuck in a windowless room, clocking in and out for years, 'growing' into the guy who trains the next round of new hires. The only thing growing would be my existential dread.

This is the classic dilemma for undergrads: take the FE exam and try for a government gig, or go to grad school?

My iMessage group chats were blowing up with debates. One friend texted: “Just take the FE, bro, you’ll get health insurance and a 401k!” Another replied: “Grad school or bust. I’m not dying in a factory.” Everyone was waiting for some sign from the universe.

But for mechanical engineering students, there’s not much of a choice. City jobs barely exist for us, so grad school is the only real path.

I realized pretty quick that nobody was hiring rookie engineers for cushy city jobs. If I wanted out of the assembly line, I had to hit the books again—either that or resign myself to a lifetime of hairnets and timecards.

So, I quietly joined the ranks of those prepping for the GRE.

I started waking up early, hitting the Starbucks by campus, and highlighting vocab lists until my eyes crossed. My friends and I swapped practice tests and horror stories about the math section, all pretending we weren’t scared out of our minds.

My family wasn’t well-off. My parents scrimped and saved, took out FAFSA loans, did everything to get me through four years. Now that I’d finally graduated, I was supposed to ease their burden—not make it worse. I was too embarrassed to ask for more, so I took on part-time gigs and got a crash course in both the bright and dark sides of society.

I worked everything from Uber Eats deliveries to unloading trucks at Target, and each shift taught me something new. One night, a customer tipped me with a smile and a twenty; another time, a woman yelled because her pizza was five minutes late. I learned to keep my head down, save every dollar, and never take kindness for granted.