Advice please! graduating college, have dept, and want to travel

Teaching in South Korea would be a good if you want the experience of living abroad. Bear in mind you wouldn't get that much time to travel though. It is also possible that you would be placed in a rural town - I have met people who were and they didn't enjoy it. However, the people working in the cities seemed to have a good time.

If I was you, I would work for a year, save up money and then take a year off to travel. It depends on where you are from but in Australia, many young people do this and it isn't really frowned up by employers.

My personal recommendation - get a job; get some experience; clear some of your debt; save to travel - then take a career break and set off. You are young and the world isn't going anywhere. What's a couple of years when you have your whole life ahead of you. Its not much fun travelling with less than zero cash.......

Travelling whilst in debt might be fun in the short term but you will return to the same financial worries you have now. Teaching abroad is full of pitfalls, time for travelling around rapidly evaporates and you can be stuck in a rut. Beware tales of the "great life!" from friends, they are often not so great in reality. As said above, work, save, sort out your debts then go forth and enjoy the world!

Dave

Yes, you need to pay off that debt pronto. Teaching english might not allow that to happen as fast as you'd like.

I am always a fan of working onboard cruise ships , with jobs that pay 2000-3000 per month and zero expenses, you can stash money decent away. They have an environmental officer position which pays more than that, but that might be hard to get right out of school. Also, you could be a tour guide in Alaska or get into the national park system up there. They will use your skills. Actually there are a lot of people who work the seasonal job thing, heading to Alaska for a summer and the lower 48 for the winter.

In my opinion, you have a specific degree so you need to find a job that uses it. You'll ultimately make more and that way you dont have to explain a year or two (or seven) living in another country not refining your craft.

Broadly speaking, engineering jobs are amongst the few bright spots in the current U.S. economy. I don't know how rapidly your degree will go obsolete, however. As an American, you know (or should know) that "gap years" and the like are not mainstream behavior here, and would require some explanation to a potential U.S. employer.

I'm not sure how you are defining "travel"--do you mean attending full moon parties in Thailand, hitting X Asian countries in Y days, just getting out of the U.S., or something else? Perhaps you could find a position via the Peace Corps and kill 2 birds with 1 stone: get out of the U.S. AND work as an engineer (albeit under more primitive conditions).

If you are American, why don't you look into jobs in the resource sector (mining mainly) in Australia. They pay huge money ($80K is reasonable) with all housing food etc for 2-3 weeks on site then they fly you somewhere "home" for 4-8 days break. That way your work is using your degree so adding to your CV as well as allowing travel on your days off. I know of one construction site in central QLD which actually flies its American workers home to the US every 3-4 months!! The govt has just been asked to approve the importation of thousands of foreign workers.

As a newly minted engineer you have one of the few diplomas that can result in a job. English teachers scrape by with their liberal arts degrees, but are still - when armed with CELTA or TEFL - much more qualified than you are to teach English. Might not be so easy to get a Korea job like your friend did. Might be alot better move to go into an entry engineering position abroad where you will be building your career and perhaps, as in the case mentioned of mining engineers, doing the type of schedule that older engineers want to grow out of. Its a great idea while you are young to explore a range of career positions in different places because, believe it or not, most older people do not want to work abroad.

Also debt increases, doesn´t stay stable. You want to take care of it in order to feel truly free in your life!

A lot is being placed on the "engineering degree". Forgive me if I am wrong but is environmental engineering classed by employers as being in the same category as mechanical/chemical engineering for example? I understood it to be akin to environmental management studies.............

Dave

Hi all, thank you very much for taking the time to read my post and reply.

To clarify a few points:
By "travelling", I mean getting out of Southern California and experience life elsewhere in a different setting and culture.
Dave, my degree is a true engineering degree, it is very similar to mechanical and aerospace engineering with a sustainability/earth science technical focus. 3/4 of the courses I've taken are also taken by mechanical and aerospace engineers.
Also, I am in no hurry to pay off my debt. I would be making the minimum payments while I work and that's why I feel I would be cutting it close if I were to accept an English teaching job. Even if I just accept a good paying job and don't go anywhere, it would take me many years to pay off.

I will continue to look and apply for domestic and international jobs in my field, I just haven't come across any that are labeled as temporary. I am hesitant to apply for normal full-time positions without any experience of what life is like outside of SoCal.
I will also throw out an application to several english teaching positions just to keep that open as an option as well. I hear the timeline for those often take several months.

Thanks again everyone!