• Question: Do you need be the best to be an engineer and is it hard to become one?

    Asked by adale03 to Alex, Claire, Kate, Marcus, Neil on 17 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: Marcus Johns

      Marcus Johns answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      I don’t think you have to ‘be the best’ in order to be an engineer, but you do have to be prepared to work hard – it’s not a walk in the park – and enjoy maths – there’s a lot of it involved.

      Personally, I think that if you put your mind to something and are determined enough anything should be possible (although perhaps not superpowers). You may have to work harder than other people and there will be times that you don’t completely understand something (that’s happened to me a fair few times) but if you’re thinking of becoming one in the future, I can definitely recommend it!

    • Photo: Claire Brockett

      Claire Brockett answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      hi adale03
      I agree with Marcus that you don’t have to be ‘the best’. I think working hard, being determined and persistent is very important. Having patience can also be extremely useful when things take a while to work out.
      Being health care engineers, I think we all probably have times when we find something we don’t understand immediately, and taking time out to learn/talk to someone who does understand really helps.
      Paying attention to detail, and being organised, are also skills that really suit being an engineer.
      Are you thinking of becoming an engineer? I would definitely recommend it too!

    • Photo: Kate Niehaus

      Kate Niehaus answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      Like Marcus and Claire have said, you can get very far by working hard and sticking with something. It’s easy in school or in college to feel like everyone around you is understanding things more quickly than you. Chances are, they actually aren’t! If you like what you’re learning and are excited by the types of jobs you will do at the end, don’t be discouraged. Ask for help if you’re stuck, and don’t be ashamed by that – everyone has to ask for help at some point.

    • Photo: Alex Lyness

      Alex Lyness answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Hey adale03,

      You can only be the best you can be. All any of our managers, bosses or supervisors will ask of us is that we put in as much effort as we can.

      Just because some people are the best at subjects at school does not mean they will have the best careers, likewise being bad at something does not mean you won’t get better at it.

      I really didn’t enjoy maths at school (or the way it was taught to me) however, I stuck at it and kept going and eventually got an A-level and now use maths on a daily basis.

      Was I the best? No. Did I put effort in and improve? Yes.

      That is much more important to becoming an engineer… and good at life in general!

    • Photo: Neil Dhir

      Neil Dhir answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      I would agree with all my fellow engineers, and their excellent answers.

      You need to work hard, and you need to know that there is a lot of maths and science involved. But if you enjoy that then you will be fine.

      But what I would add is that you need to have imagination and creativity. That will make you a truly good and worthwhile engineer. The best engineers are not necessarily the ones who can solve the problem the fastest, but rather those who can solve it in the smartest way. Most famous engineers were not brain-boxes, but rather they thought outside the box and that is what made them truly brilliant. By looking at a problem from a different, you can sometimes find a solution that most have not thought, a solution which may well be completely bonkers, but nonetheless works. If you can do that, then you will be one of the great.

      So no, you do not need to be the best to be an engineer.

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