• Question: How old were you when you knew you wanted to become an engineer?

    Asked by speed machine to Ashwanth, Jeni, Mark, Natalie, Stephen on 14 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Stephen Richardson

      Stephen Richardson answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      I think I was a teenager, maybe 14 or 15 when I first thought about it.
      Is it something you’re considering?

    • Photo: Natalie Wride

      Natalie Wride answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      I was probably about 13. I wanted to be an architect before that but I watched a TV show called Megastructures and found it really interesting. Seeing how huge skyscrapers and the world’s tallest bridge were built and the complex problems that needed to be solved in order to construct them was amazing! It was then I realised the job I actually wanted was to do was called a Civil Engineer – I wanted to design things to stand up rather than design how they looked 🙂

    • Photo: Mark Gowan

      Mark Gowan answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      A good question. I decided when I was at an external careers fair when I was 15. I always wanted to be an Architect and I was standing in a queue to speak to the Architect and he was next to the Civil Engineer, I started talking to the Civil Engineer and I realised that I wanted to be a Civil Engineer and not an Architect.

    • Photo: Jeni Spragg

      Jeni Spragg answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      I decided when I was picking my university choices aged 17. Even then, I wasn’t totally sure what I was getting myself in for!

      I chose my A level subjects because I liked the subjects, but I didn’t have a particular career in mind. I wasn’t sure if I would do archaelogy, or pharmacy, or something else. Engineering was something I stumbled upon when I went to visit universities.

      I have a couple of friends who studied engineering but decided they didn’t want to carry on being an engineer after university. But they always said they were still glad they studied engineering, because it kept doors open to a whole range of other careers.

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