After getting my BS in Mechanical Engineering I went to work for 2 years in the aerospace industry. A lot of the more cutting edge work  I was exposed to was really exciting, but the barrier for entry was often a MS and experience doing research. As a result, I decided to go back to school full time, as the research options were better then trying to do it part time while working (my work had no research projects I could use as my PhD).

Once I got back to school, I excelled  and won many awards. Unfortunately around 2 years in, right in the middle of my main data collection and experimentation, the funding for the work I was doing fell through and that ended the collaboration with the lab we were working with. As a result no further data could be collected, and I had to switch topics. The new topic is going well, but my husband was relocated to NC and now I am finishing up remotely from NC, which has slowed down the progress a lot. 

My issue is that with the relocation I need to get a job down here in NC, but I have 4 years of full time graduate school on my resume and no degree yet to show for it. Since I was only going for my MS degree, not a PhD, that seems like a large block of time with no degree for it. I have many research and leadership awards and summer coop work (at NASA even), but I have gotten no replies to my resume at all. In addition, this area of NC is not big on MEs and most jobs are in manufacturing and construction, so the number of available jobs in aero work are limited.

1.) Is this time block back at school with no degree yet a major issue?

2.) If so, how can I make it sound better? I currently have an awards and leadership block listing over 16 major items, as well as the research experience and NASA and some publications.

Thanks for the help!