ThugNuggington

Not sure if this is a good place to ask this, but worth a shot I guess. I had something of a mental breakdown while working full-time to get through chemical engineering school. I failed some classes at the end that I ended up retaking and graduated with a 3.4 gpa, but my transcript looks rough from that. Had no research or internships, and have been delivering pizzas for the last 2.5 years since then. I've recently started hitting the books again to refresh myself on what I've forgotten. My question is this.. what can I do to get myself on track to land my first real job? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: can't believe all the good advice and encouragement, thank you all so much. I think at this point I'm going to hit the books HARD to see how much I remember. If it looks manageable I think I'll take the FE before I start the job hunt, and if not it's something I'll work towards while finding that first real job. To the people who say they are in the same boat as me, good luck and don't give up.

That's a pretty fair answer, and I thank you for taking the time to respond. If I could ask a follow-up question, do I need to worry about setting the bar too low by working as a lab tec for example, or is any job in a STEM field a good start?

Honestly this is very refreshing to read. The posts in the chemE subreddit make my situation sound impossible. As one final question, how long should I spend at a starter job before I try moving up the ladder elsewhere (assuming I cannot do so at the first company I work for)?