[huevosabio]

Civil engineer grad now data scientist here.

As other have, I would recommend that you work on something related to your current area. Try to learn Python on the side and start automating tasks.

For example, when I was an intern at a hydraulic engineering company, there were some pump automation efforts for which I volunteered to debug important but off-the-critical-path code.

Later, as a grad student, I helped automate construction schedules for wind farm developers. Here I was in direct contact with the contractors themselves.

Another alternative, but riskier, is to take some time off to to build a project portfolio. This was the approach from a friend that went through the same program as I did but went on to join a construction consultancy company. He went on to become a data scientist.

What have you worked on the last 6 years? Where do you think the process could be automated?