• Question: Have you always wanted to be an engineer?

    Asked by hannahgrimes to Alex, Chris, Harriet, Jed, Ken on 13 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by charlotteacb11, codyrocksyoursocks, kayleighstyles, chloe123, naomid, u28daviesc, lizzie169, abigail.
    • Photo: Ken Gibbs

      Ken Gibbs answered on 11 Mar 2012:

      The short answer is, “No”. I started thinking that I’d like to be a farmer but I was one of five sons and as there was only one farm and as I was almost the youngest, this wasn’t going to happen. I was reasonably good at maths and science so it was suggested that I just get a qualification which uses maths and science, and make up my mind later. I thus studied civil engineering but the course was so theoretical that when I finally qualified, I didn’t want to be an engineer. I taught maths instead for almost two years.

      It took many more years before I finally decided exactly what I wanted to do – which involved water supplies to rural communities – by which time I was already over 40 years of age. So, I have taken the slow route into wanting to be an engineer.

    • Photo: Jed Ramsay

      Jed Ramsay answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      I don’t think I’ve met an engineer yet who always wanted to be one!
      I’m a bit like Ken, in that I actually wanted to do something else and came to engineering later on. When I was at school I was obsessed with playing guitar and wanted to be in a band… and still do really! But in the meantime I got a job and ended up working in environmental engineering. I’ve been lucky as I really enjoy it and if I could be young again I wish I could choose to study engineering when I was young as it’s a great a thing to do.

    • Photo: Alexander Zacheshigriva

      Alexander Zacheshigriva answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      I guess there was time when I wanted to be something else. But when I was about 15 and started thinking practically about what I should train for Engineering sounded very appealing. And I haven’t changed my mind since.

    • Photo: Harriet Fletcher

      Harriet Fletcher answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      In the 80s Snickers ran an ad campaign that showed a civil engineer blowing up a bridge and after that I was pretty well sold. I then found out that you have to study concrete a lot in civil engineering so decided that mechanical was for me (no-one told me about the endless courses on bearings). So I suppose yes I sort of always have wanted to be an engineer but I didn’t know doing what or why until I was in my 20s.

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