• Question: Why did you want to be engineer?

    Asked by ashlearose to Amit, Emily, Joanne, Martin, Paige on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Joanne Davies

      Joanne Davies answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Good question ashlearose. 🙂

      I wanted to be an engineer because I love learning about the way things are made and what we make them out of.

      I made bandages and wound dressings once.
      It’s amazing how they make those.

      They start off with a material that looks and feels like sand.
      Then they put it into a big pot and mix it with liquids.
      (They call this mixture ‘dope.’)

      Once it’s mixed up, it runs through lots of pipes and is pushed through a metal mesh. When you take some out at this stage, it feels and looks like hair gel.

      Then as if by magic, when it is brought into the air, the gel turns into the string we need to make the bandages and wound dressings! 🙂

      Once we have that string, we can make it into the shapes we want for bandages and that’s it!

    • Photo: Amit Pujari

      Amit Pujari answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Hi ashlearose,

      I was sure that I wanted to study engineering (but I was not sure of which kind).

      I always liked to know ‘how things work?’, ‘how to make things?’ ‘How to design things?’ and that is what engineering is about (in a sense)! Science is about understanding things which already exist in nature while engineering is about ‘creating/designing things’ based on science we know, making them better! In school years, I had interest in science modules but I was surprised to discover that you can create/design amazing things with engineering skills. Something which does not exist naturally but engineered by you. Something interesting, something innovative, something useful! Hence I decided to opt for engineering.

      Luckily I got good enough grades and a place at the University and I jumped on the course for undergrad!

    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Because engineers are AWESOME – they design the biggest things in the world (some of the biggest bridges and buildings) to some of the smallest things in the world (nanostructures and tiny computer circuits!)

      I wanted to be a biological engineer because they get to design artificial organs and limbs that can help people get back to a normal life after the loss of a leg, for example. I always thought that it was amazing that people with amputated legs can now ski, sprint, and do other sports with the help of specialized prosthetic limbs!

      Check out this prosthetic limb for water-skiing:

    • Photo: Martin Wallace

      Martin Wallace answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      I really like the way things move and interact with each other. Playing with construction toys as a child allowed me to understand how gears and motors and levers interact, and allowed me to visualise the machines and structures that can be made from such simple concepts.
      I would advise anybody who is thinking about being an engineer, is to have a go with playing with some meccano, or k’nex, or something similar, and seeing what you can make using your own inspiration!

    • Photo: Emily Bullen

      Emily Bullen answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      I chose engineering as a job because I like the diversity and the problem solving aspects. By the nature of it, you are also working with lots of different people, from different backgrounds, with is great.

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