• Question: What is the most important character trait required to be a successful engineer?

    Asked by Irene Adler to Abbie, Melanie, Paul, Stu, Tom on 10 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Stuart Inglis

      Stuart Inglis answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      Hi Irene,

      I suppose the main one is problem solving ability on the technical side of things, which doesn’t necessarily mean maths and physics!! If you’re a practical thinker and can apply things that you do know / have seen to new situations that’s problem solving!!

      But other good characteristics would be ability to work as a team, tenacity to not give up and curiosity to question everything (especially when people say “oh that can’t be done”)!

    • Photo: Melanie Zimmer

      Melanie Zimmer answered on 11 Mar 2016:

      I agree with Stu, you should be curious about things and like problem solving (and although maths is not mandatory to become an engineer, from my experience I can say that it helps if you enjoy). The image of an engineer working on his/her own locked in a room just working for him-/herself is not the case in the real world – we work a lot in teams, which helps us to get our ideas and research going.

    • Photo: Paul Webb

      Paul Webb answered on 11 Mar 2016:

      Determination I feel as good as you are at problem solving if your not dertemined you will just give up and it don’t get fixed

      Drive and determination push you to want to fix it, to want to get better at your job, better at college work and to prove the doubters wrong !!

    • Photo: Abbie Hutty

      Abbie Hutty answered on 13 Mar 2016:

      Logical thinking and problem solving – breaking down problems into chunks that you can solve, until the whole thing is manageable. And the curiosity to question how and why things work, or don’t work, and how they could be made better.
      Team working and communication skills help too, but you pick those up as you go along!

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