Engineering Advice of pursing two MS degrees given my situation

[PaperClipOp]

Hi all! Longtime lurker here. Need some advice on what's the best route for my career given my situation.

So I graduated with my bachelors in Mechanical Engineering, team lead/design lead for my Formula SAE, worked at a few FAANG companies. But I had a lapse of judgement and got tangled with the legal system. I was not convicted, and I will be able to expunge the record in 3 years.

The problem is, I'm basically undesirable because of it (I will not divulge into the specifics); I've applied to local machine shops, engineering firms, small companies that I could find locally and either I don't get responses, or I get up to the background check part and they deny me. For reference I know a PE who has his own firm who is still nice enough to give LOR and advice but has trouble bringing me on to his projects since his clients wouldn't want to work with me.

So I went to grad school at one of the Big 10 universities for my Masters in ME (debt free), and I have about a year left. But that leaves 2 years of time, so I'm planning to get another masters (debt free), but in Applied Computational Mathematics. Now, I want to make it clear that this would help me pivot to what I actually do want to do (modeling/simulation/data science etc) when I start applying for jobs since my current Masters has shown I have a knack for numerical analysis and coding. During grad school I have done quite a bit of projects, and most notably a project on making my own finite element solver from scratch using C++ for 3D elements etc, so the performance has been similar to Abaqus. So I know I can apply what I learned for numerical analysis.

I realize that the lack of professional experience doesn't help, but is this truly the best on what I can do? I've thought of freelancing but I'd imagine that requires experience + contacts which both I don't really have.

 

[Dale]

Just a personal opinion, but it seems to me that you are on a good track with a good plan given your circumstances.

Of course, since you were not convicted, it is illegal to discriminate against you on the basis of the arrest/indictment/trial etc. in hiring decisions. Most large companies are well aware of that fact and their HR departments do not provide that information to the hiring manager. So you need to consider the possibility that the hiring difficulties you are experiencing are due to something else entirely.

 

[PaperClipOp]

Just a personal opinion, but it seems to me that you are on a good track with a good plan given your circumstances.

Of course, since you were not convicted, it is illegal to discriminate against you on the basis of the arrest/indictment/trial etc. in hiring decisions. Most large companies are well aware of that fact and their HR departments do not provide that information to the hiring manager. So you need to consider the possibility that the hiring difficulties you are experiencing are due to something else entirely.

I might be wrong but as far as I understand what you're talking about would fall under Ban the Box policies.

The state I'm in offers no protections against that. I did ask my lawyer if what these companies did were legal and he said it was unfortunately.