• Question: How can one tell if there good at engineering?

    Asked by 999 trillion mph to Ashwanth, Jeni, Mark, Natalie, Stephen on 14 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Natalie Wride

      Natalie Wride answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      Hi 999 trillion mph 🙂

      This is a great question! And the honest answer for me is you don’t know! It’s really difficult because you don’t really study Engineering at school – so coming to University to study it can be a bit of a shock! Whilst it does involve some maths, some physics and in my case bits of chemistry, geography and D&T, I didn’t know if I’d be any good at it until I went to University and really enjoyed it! I think if you enjoy what you’re doing and what you’re studying then you’re on track to be a great Engineer 🙂

    • Photo: Stephen Richardson

      Stephen Richardson answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      I would say if you like to solve problems and if you can handle a bit of maths and physics then you’re probably going to do alright in engineering.
      There are so many different types of engineering job that you should be able to find something that suits you

    • Photo: Mark Gowan

      Mark Gowan answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      You can tell a good engineer by the way that you think
      if you think like an Engineer you will ask question like, How does that work?, why does it do that?, what happens if we change this? Who is going to use this? when will it need to be used? where is it going to be used?

      If you question things in this way and can come up with an answer to them you are on your way to be a good engineer

    • Photo: Jeni Spragg

      Jeni Spragg answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      I agree with Natalie – it can be hard to know if you’ve never tried it!

      Engineers tend to like to know how things work, or where they come from.

      A bit like the others said, the main ingredients for a good engineer are being interested in how to apply science and maths to the real world. You might also like working with other people and solving problems.

      So even if you find maths or science a bit boring at school, it may be that you find it much more interesting when you start to use it as a tool to design things. (maths seems to have much more point to it when you realise what it’s used for!).

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