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Asked by imz37 to Alex, Claire, Kate, Marcus, Neil on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by 12345giraffie, lea986.
Question: What makes you stand out as an engineer?
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Marcus Johns answered on 17 Jun 2014:
I think I have two skills that make me stand out as a researcher in an engineering field – rather than as a straight engineer. Firstly, I’m good at coming up with ideas, which is very important when you’re trying to carry out research that pushes the boundaries of human knowledge. Although I need to work a little harder at applying the ideas and getting results!
Secondly, I’m approaching my research from a slightly different angle to that of other researchers in the same field. Most of them have a background in biology or medicine whilst I have one in chemical engineering. This means that I think about how the end product will be used and created in a commercial setting as well as trying to optimise it for its intended use. For example, the materials that I’m making will be wet when they are used in a patient, so many researchers look at materials in their wet state only. However, no company will want to ship materials that are wet – the weight of the water, which could be removed and then re-added later, increases the cost of shipping and bacteria could grow on them, ruining them. Therefore, I’m looking at ways to dry the material and then re-wet it before testing cells on it.
My research may be slower because of this, but the final product will be much closer to a point where it could be commercialised and there are many examples of where the cheaper product has been more successful than the technically best product.
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Claire Brockett answered on 17 Jun 2014:
Despite all my practical engineering skills, I think what makes me different is my ability to talk 🙂
I talk to lots of different people to understand exactly what the problems are (for example, it wouldn’t be any good me designing a new ankle replacement if they couldn’t actually make it, or if the surgeon couldn’t put it in the patient). I talk to lots of other researchers at conferences to let them know what I’ve found out. I talk to lots of students doing engineering degrees to teach them what I’ve learnt. I talk at public science events about my research and why science and engineering is so important (I’m doing a talk on ‘Fractures and falls at the Tour de France – repairing bones at the end of the month).
Being able to talk to people, and explain things clearly is really important. -
Alex Lyness answered on 17 Jun 2014:
Hey imz37,
I think Marcus and Claire have both answered this well. It’s always nice to be good at one thing but it’s impressive when you can use your personality/upbringing to put your own twist on things. Like Claire I would consider myself a good communicator, I grew up in a pub and have been speaking to adults from a very early age.
Some very clever engineers are not so good at presenting or discussing their work, which can be a real shame. Where as some people are good at presenting but not very good engineers! I’ve worked with both types and they can be really useful but frustrating at times.
The trick is to be good at both… that’ll make you stand out. Good luck!
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Kate Niehaus answered on 19 Jun 2014:
An important part of any job, engineering included, is being able to continue learning. I have a willingness and a desire to keep learning, which keeps me interested in engineering and also usually brings good results.
Also, as mentioned, you can be the smartest, most amazing engineer in terms of the technical work, but if you build something that is not useful to anyone, then you won’t get very far. It’s very important to communicate with people you’re working with (for me, that’s often doctors and other scientists) well in order to do a good job. I generally think that I do this well, but there is always room for improvement!
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