Explore engineering careers

Hi, I’m Emma and I’m currently doing a year in industry placement with RWE as part of my general engineering course at the University of Sheffield, where I’m specialising in energy and sustainability.

At school, I didn’t always know what I wanted to do, but I decided to try studying engineering at university as I’ve always enjoyed STEM subjects and problem solving. I chose my general engineering course as I didn’t know what type of engineering I wanted to do, and general engineering allows you to explore lots of different types of engineering before deciding on your area of interest.

One of the things which has surprised me the most about engineering is the range of different types of engineering that exist, especially beyond the main electrical, mechanical, and civil areas that you tend to hear about the most. There are so many other very specific roles and areas around such as mechatronics, acoustic engineering, and medical technologies, and most people tend not to have heard about these at school.

As part of my course, I’m doing a placement in development project management, and this is allowing me to explore lots of different types of engineering areas and roles within the offshore wind industry, with the aim of hopefully helping me decide what kind of role I might like to do in the future.

I found this placement by looking up lots of different renewable energy companies, both developers and within the supply chain, and keeping an eye out for when the application process opened.

One of the things which surprised me most about engineering and industry is quite how interdisciplinary it is, both with different types of engineers working closely together and also engineers working with different areas of the business such as finance and consents teams, and quite how much these other teams influence engineering decisions.

Overall, for anyone considering engineering, I would definitely recommend giving it a try. There is such a range of engineering roles and areas around that it’s very likely you’ll find something which suits your strengths and interests, so definitely give it a go. Thank you for listening and good luck.