What if you don't get anywhere? What should you do?

[Wickedly]

Should you look for Post- baccalaureate programs? What if you plant to go to an Engineer school for Masters or PhD but you didn't got in anywhere you applied.

What would you guys recommend to do?

[hj2012]

Depends. Why do you think you didn't get in? If it's because of a lack of relevant coursework or a GPA problem, then the post-bacc seems reasonable. If the problem was lack of research experience or a poor GRE score, then your path would be different.

 

Is looking for a full-time job out of the question?

[Wickedly]

Clearly looking to keep studying and continue my education since a Masters is my goal. And to answer your first question we can say that is because of low GPA . GRE scores are above average.

[juilletmercredi]

No, I wouldn't recommend a post-baccalaureate program at all.  What I would recommend you do is work.

 

A low undergraduate GPA becomes less important the more distance/time there is between you and your college graduation.  Furthermore, work experience doing similar tasks to what you are preparing for a career in can also raise confidence that you can do the job.  So I would recommend that you look for full-time work in your field.  The kind of work you get will depend on what you want - if you want to be a professional engineer just find an engineering job, whereas if you want to get a PhD and go into research, it may look better to find a research-related engineering job if you can.  So work for a couple of years, and perhaps take some graduate-level engineering classes as a non-degree student part-time at a local public university.  This will show that you can, indeed, succeed in graduate level classes if given the chance.

 

Then reapply.  No need to spend money on fancy expensive post-bacc programs, in my opinion.

[hj2012]

Listen to Juillet -- she's spot on. A post-bacc would only be necessary if your grades were truly abysmal (and thus preventing you from securing a FT job) or if you're trying to switch fields and don't have the necessary pre-requisite coursework. I also suspect you are overplaying the importance of staying in school if that seems like the "clear" option to you. For professional degrees, my understanding was that work experience often trumped your academic record.

[Scarf in the wind]

And what if a full-time job is out of the question because you've applied millions of times to work in a research position and receive rejections every time?

 

What if the labs who are researching what you want to research in your Master's/PhD program don't accept you because you didn't attend their school for your undergraduate education? What if your shunned when you volunteer and you don't get called back?

[hj2012]

Well, this advice was more for the OP, who's in engineering. I was making the assumption that engineers have more options for jobs in their field, provided extenuating circumstances (abysmal GPA, lack of requisite coursework).