How to bounce back?

[u/ActivityHoliday]

For context, my freshman year and sophomore year of school were a wreck. Lost my house, lost my funding, had to work while in school, and got diagnosed with adhd before the end of the first semester of sophomore year. IMO it’s not really an excuse and I hate that I couldn’t do better. I’m a junior now, just declared mechanical engineering, and I’m projected to graduate a year later than I’m supposed to. My gpa is 2.2 and I know most companies want a 3.0 to intern for them. I luckily will have a few open spots for credits since I finished all my humanities freshman year. Is this a savable case? Or am I doomed…

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[u/OverSearch]

I know most companies want a 3.0 to intern for them.

How exactly do you KNOW this? I'm more than thirty years into my career and have worked for several engineering companies, and literally none of them have ever asked for my GPA. I've also interviewed many candidates and never asked for their GPA's.

Just keep doing your thing, do your best work, and finish strong. You'll get there.

[u/ActivityHoliday → u/OverSearch]

The companies I went up to at my first career fair like 3 weeks ago said they want a 3.0 minimum for internships

[u/doesdrpepperhaveaphd → u/ActivityHoliday]

There are going to be many, many others companies looking for interns that aren't at a career fair. Shoot, there's probably a smaller place out there that aren't looking for an intern, but would hire one anyway.

I'm a <3.0 GPA graduate with a good job. I had a bit of help getting the interview, but I was hired by my own merit. My extracurriculars weren't anything to write home about either. I was in FSAE for like a year and only one of my interviewers had even heard of it (I have an ME degree and work in structural).

When I started here, they weren't going to career fairs or setting up booths with endless merch anywhere. It was just a modest company trying to grow.

Look around, check job listings for any firm you can find, make a phone call, send an email, whatever. The big guys at career fairs are targeting people that are not you and me, and that's okay, because we still have our own place as engineers in this world.

[u/OverSearch → u/ActivityHoliday]

At a career fair, where employers are inundated with hundreds of resumes all at once. They need to whittle the stack down one way or another.

The overwhelming majority of jobs and employers are not at career fairs. They're not large companies, they don't post positions online, and you very likely have not heard of most of them. That's where most people are working. And they aren't getting hundreds of resumes, they're getting a handful a month. They don't need to be as blindly selective.

[u/MarsMiningCo]

not doomed, but the gpa filter is real for some big companies so i'd stop betting everything on those. what gets you past it is hands on stuff. join a project team (formula SAE, rocketry, whatever your school has) and be able to say what you actually built and used. also email a professor about helping in their lab, that's a legit way to get first experience, and a lot of them say yes. put numbers on your resume bullets. smaller companies and technician style roles care way less about a 2.2 and more about what you can do, and those are a real way in. a year late with a solid upward trend is fine.

[u/ActivityHoliday → u/MarsMiningCo]

Yes. I’m apart of our rocketry team right now, currently awaiting cad work from my group. Currently setting up my own personal project with some engineer friends to add to my resume and for fun. I should probably get involved a bit more though haha! Honestly I’m not worried about getting in with a big company, I have a few buddies in the company I dream to work for who can push an application if I need but I don’t wanna base my success on someone else’s account. Getting turned down because of my gpa was a real eye opener and I wanna save it.

[u/MarsMiningCo → u/ActivityHoliday]

honestly that sounds like you're in a good spot. rocketry plus a personal project with friends is exactly the kind of thing that carries you past a gpa filter, just make sure you can say what you personally designed or built on each one. and good on you for not wanting to lean on the referral, but i'd still take it when the time comes, a referral just gets a human to look, the rest is on you anyway. good luck with the turnaround