What advice would you give to someone transitioning from active duty combat arms to a civilian career as a mechanical engineer?

Suggestions?

SMSgt Lawrence McCarter LT Brad McInnis PO3 Bob McCord CW3 Dick McManus SGT John " Mac " McConnell CWO3 Dennis M. MSgt Stephen Council LTC Stephen Conway LTC Stephan PorterLTC Stephen C. LTC Greg Henning SGT Gregory Lawritson Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. SGT Jim Arnold Maj Robert Thornton SFC Francisco Rosario LTC (Join to see) Sgt Deborah Cornatzer Col Carl Whicker

SGT (Join to see) couple things.
1. Start building a professional network, this is how you get work, start with people you went to school with.
2. Study for and pass the FE exam so you can start working on your PE license. Any engineering work you do, get the reference and experience documented. See the NCEES site or the state you'll work/license in. Your hurdle will be design experience.
3. Figure out the area you want to work in and get certifications in that area like LEED. Stay current in the field while you are on AD.
4. Much of Engineering is about solving problems and making stuff happen. Culturally this is to your advantage. A project manager at our local utility company was a Cav scout and we got along great. I was a customer stakeholder. Bring that mission first attitude.
5. Civilian organizations are more "civilized". Few have had to crap in a hole, share a tooth pick with a battle, shoot at someone etc. watch your language or you'll be a HR frequent flyer. If people have a problem with you, they won't generally take it up with you... HR again.
6. People will become interested in your back story. Don't tell the same stories over and over.
7. Join professional organizations like American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The member publications will help keep you up in the field. Go to local chapter meetings to build network..
8. See if the DPW on post will let you assist with a project in some capacity in you off time.
9. If you are thinking about commissioning try and branch engineer so you can build PE experience time.

I transitioned and went back to civil engineering, via engineering management doing facilities maintenance. There were some really rough days and weeks, but as an entry level engineer you'll be ok. Keep a good attitude.

Here's minimum what you'll need, OK? First yr, standard physics, with FULL calc, both halves, differential and integral, AS WELL AS std inorganic 1st-yr chem, WITH LABS FOR ALL, OK? Second yr, differential eqns, then vector calc, which is typ calc 3 in most schools, also full modern physics WITH LAB, a WHOLE 2nd yrs, NOT HALF, OK? Third yr, linear/matrix algebra, complex variables, control systems...at some point, 2nd or 3rd yr, engrg mechanics (all schools use Beer and Johnston, trust me, the big blue Bible), as well as strength of materials...then, too, math methods in physics, using Boas or Arfken, Boas is easier, Arfken is rougher, though they're undergrad texts, they can be used as grad texts, however, they'll keep you going learning enough math physics technique...you'll need coursework on lasers, as well as electro-optics...you'll esp need numerical methods and/or approximation techniques...you'll also want signal processing, for data acquisition from wind tunnels, which are still used, I assure you...then, too, a good deal of chaotic nonlinear dynamics, catastrophe theory, differential geometry, point-set topology, modern algebra of groups, rings, and fields, function theory...you'll also want a good deal of particle physics, electromagnetics using Johnk (EE) or Jackson (physics), and statistical physics (which is just about the single hardest area in physics)...that's why I'm suggesting materials science for you, you'll get a WAY more current, diverse background, than doing straight mech/aero...look up also chassical dynamics using Goldstein, quantum mechanics using Anderson and/or Merzbacher...you want the REAL thing? Trust me, I'm GIVING you the REAL thing, honest, OK? And if you can do more chem, that'd also be good, incl analytic chem, organic, spectroscopy and ind instrumentation, incl mass spectrometry, IR, UV, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques, all of which are used in destructive as well as nondestructive testing (NDT)...if you can manage some ultrasonics along the way, that'd also be a big help, it's highly germane, esp for such testing approaches for structures, OK? There's way more, however, that'll give you at least a rudimentary clue, OK?

https://imagej.net/ImageJ2

This is a more advanced version, it and the other one were intended for clinical imaging, however, they've been adapted to numerous other fields, plus, they're open source as well, you can modify them all you want....

Study Hard, believe in yourself, your God & your country, work your ass off and pay attention to those with experience, but question if necessary, and there's nothing you cannot achieve! If you have the honor of family to have your back, love, honor and cherish those ties, for they will always be a source of your strength. Oh, AND DON'T THINK COMBAT ARMS DOESN'T REQUIRE INTELLECT! I for one highly respect and thank you for your service, and you should NEVER doubt your abilities - you set your own limits!

If your long term is the ME, then I'd recommend you optimize becoming that. It's just not the school. It's passing the FE, four to six years of supervised engineering work, and then passing the PE. There's also how you want to do the AD. ENL or OFF? You can get supervision time credit if you are say CoE and do credible work. If you don't, then your PE ticket is pushed out. So your transition can either be as an ENL having to do entry level work with a FE ticket for years, or go commissioned and do the time to take your PE, then transition. Or, you can go longer and have Uncle Sam pick up your Masters ticket. Realistically, you get more focused engineering preparation directly working for an engineering firm right out of school. Getting a PE on the MIL side and then punching out typically doesn't give you the amount of hands on design experience. Most MIL PEs I knew getting out as an O-3 typically didn't do well in design because the CIV kids that worked since college run circles around them. More exMIL PEs wind up in construction management and project management because they lack hard technical design skills. Depending on how you do it will be a bigger tell on transition issues.

Most schools now have the FE as a graduation requirement. If you don't use it, you go stale. It isn't an intellectual thing, it's losing technical skill knowledge because you aren't racking up engineering experience.

Your RP profile has little information to help me in forming an answer, so I'll have to stick to generalities. I see you're in the Guard. I'm assuming from that fact that you have worked in the private sector for some period of time. Here's my advice:
-Companies in the private sector are mostly motivated by profits. Your contribution to making those profits, directly or indirectly, greatly influences your compensation and continued employment. The Army, however, pays the same in each grade and time in service, regardless of achievements. Your performance in the military influences your promotions and survival.
-Being on time and ready to work is a given in the military. Not so much in civilian industry. As an engineer, you may be inclined to know the rules and follow the rules, pay close attention to detail, and look for solutions to problems. People without military training and engineering education will not look at the world the way you probably will. You'll have to get used to people often being late and sometimes not fully ready to work. If you're a supervisor, you can communicate to them your displeasure with this type of performance. Some may take you seriously.
-Next is work ethic. As a military person you're accustomed to working toward a goal and not quitting until the job is done and done right. The larger civilian world doesn't always work this way. Many employees are simply working for the weekend. They endure their jobs because they need to eat, pay rent, send their kids to college, etc. Their real passion is somewhere else. They generally know the labor laws and rules and will often work over 8 hours per day only if there's overtime pay or other compensation involved.
-There is a direct link between performance and compensation. As I mentioned above, your performance directly influences your compensation in the private sector. Raises, bonuses, and other perks go to the top performers. It also is a large factor in continued employment. Conversely, it takes relatively little time to fire a private sector employee compared to a military or civilian government employee.

https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/

This is free, the best image-processing package I've ever seen....

https://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/software/dataplot/

This is a cool, little-known package from NIST, it can be tricky to load and get to go, however, it's well worth it, I've known about it for yrs....

https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html

Get a student license version if you're in school, the home license version is a couple of hundred bucks...ALL serious scientists use this...ALL....