• Question: Has there ever been a time where you've wanted to give up because you didn't think your skills were good enough

    Asked by okoln003 to Amanda, Ben, Dan, Gary, Samer on 19 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Gary Boorman

      Gary Boorman answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      There are times when I’ve realised my knowledge for a particular aspect of engineering is not enough – so I do some learning (perhaps attend a course somewhere, read books, talk to people).

    • Photo: Amanda Lewin

      Amanda Lewin answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      I got made redundant in 2009 after the whole credit crunch thing. It was upsetting but I realised it was because the company had done badly not because of me. The great thing about engineering is you can apply it to lots of different areas so I got a new job designing lighting and signalling for motorways. After a few years when construction picked up again I was able to go back to working with buildings. Engineers are flexible!

    • Photo: Samer Kilani

      Samer Kilani answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      I regularly face problems where I find myself stuck. Either feeling that there might not be enough skill, not understanding the problem, or you simply have a feeling that this might be a problem with no solution. But in every single situation I managed to overcome that, I work extremely hard on finding a solution. At the end, you look back and you find that the solution for that problem was suddenly an easy one and you kind of laugh at yourself for not knowing it from the start. I don’t know why but I love that feeling.

    • Photo: Ben Drumm

      Ben Drumm answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Haha – when I first started in my current (and only!) job there were times when I was thinking ‘Jesus Christ I’m way out of my depth here’ but you get over that eventually. I feel pretty comfortable in my role these days, and it’s satisfying to have gotten myself into that position (I guess I must know a lot now that I didn’t before!)

      My job as an engineer is probably the steepest learning curve I have ever experienced, but when you’re new to the profession people understand this will give you time and space to learn your skills.

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