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All About Careers - Engineering

Engineers are involved in almost every area of our lives: from the cars we drive to the food we eat. So what is engineering really about? It’s all about solving problems using specialist technical and practical skills. It’s all about maths, science, research, prototypes, design, maintenance and production. It’s certainly not a man’s world; more and more girls are becoming engineers.

Engineers design, manufacture and maintain almost everything people and industries use; from computers, spacecraft and boats, to corkscrews, buildings and chemical reactors. With most choosing to specialise in one particular field of engineering, engineers truly are a diverse bunch. For example, there’s naval architects, specialising in designing and building boats; biomedical engineers, who develop medical devices; and drilling engineers, who plan and execute drilling operations to extract various natural resources from the earth. As an engineer you could be working in an office, in a laboratory, on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean, in a factory, or even in outer space!

If anything, engineering is about problem solving. Engineers provide technological solutions to problems, issues and ideas that affecting our everyday lives. Thus budding engineers need strong mathematical and logical skills and the ability to rise to intellectual and practical challenges. There is a huge array of engineering degrees to choose from, including bioengineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering and environmental engineering. Of course, you don’t have to specialise early on, you can choose to take a general engineering degree and move into a specialised field later on. Not all engineers are university educated; there’s a number of engineering apprentice schemes for those who don’t want to go down the university route.

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