At a tough spot career-wise... not sure what to do

Ottmundr said
Yes, they are lying. People selling school programs are working to get butts in seats, which makes THEIR job secure. They don't give a damn about you, nor do they care about employers in the community. If they did, they would be proactive in interacting with industry and placing their students. They would be someone that actually cares about what they do, and the people they interact with.

How much machinists training was involved in your BSME? Have you considered hitting up union halls? Apprenticeship, then journeyman. It makes good money, save as much as you can. Once you have that experience, plus your degree, you'll have a pretty hefty resume. That's if you even want to work for someone else after gaining that experience... There is nothing wrong with blue collar work.

Also, remember that a lot of finding a job still boils down to who knows you. Patronage, nepotism whatever you want to call it. It is real, it sucks. To combat that you may want to just hit the pavement and sell yourself to businesses. Cold call them. Do not leave until they tell you NO three times. Tell them that you'd like to intern for them and show them your work and work ethic. Your work ethic is what will get you remembered. If they do not notice it, then they are not worth working for.

This is great advice THANK YOU... I am very hands-on and would have no problem working in a machine shop, in fact I've considered that many times. I love making things and using machines. When I was doing Senior Design I ended up getting a bad grade because my professor was a retarded @$$hole who thought that time spent on a job correlates to how well it's done; I was one of the few kids in the class who would get all of my prototype parts spot-on on the first try, and the on-campus machinist who ran the shop was probably the coolest person in the whole school. I would spend all day in there chatting it up with him about hot rods and muscle cars, he would even let me bring in car parts to machine on his stuff.

Companies now have done a pretty good job of taking away the "cold call/walk-in" method, like they don't even have a phone number to call and if you walk in asking about a job they just say "Go to our website." I'll still try that though, my confidence in my abilities has gone up quite a bit since I graduated college and realized how useless 80% of my generation is.