Career advice for EE via /r/AskEngineers

Hello,

I'm a new grad and I have two job offers sitting on my plate. I'm am EE who isn't 100% convinced I want to stay in engineering in the future.

The two jobs are working for the government doing controls work or working for a private firm doing EE related defense work. The pay is about equal, however, I'd be living in a new city for the defense contractor as opposed to at home (no rent) for the government.

Is there anything to consider when choosing a career path this early on? I don't want to be working in controls my whole life for sure as I've read lots about engineers who get stuck in the industry (you can correct me if I'm wrong). The defense contractor seems like a cool job, but I'm scared of job security especially since I see a lot of EEs jobless currently.

I want to do the defense contractor because I feel like more opportunities will be open for me in the future within engineering, but the government job opens up security and the ability to do extra studies for a different career path. Since I don't know if I like engineering careers yet, I'm conflicted.

In the future I want to grab a graduate degree (economics, MBA, finance, etc) because I'd like to work in management as opposed to technical roles. Early on, I'm very open to technical roles.

Any advice is appreciated since this is not an easy decision.