• Question: If you had one piece of advice for a year 8 to start to become like you what would it be?

    Asked by 332kgrf49.3 to Adam, Eloise, Iona, Jarrod, Yip on 14 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by misterfuzzy98.
    • Photo: Iona Strawson

      Iona Strawson answered on 14 Jun 2016:


      Try and think about what you enjoy, what you feel you are good at and start to think about those subjects in terms of what job you could get. In terms of engineering, maths and science are at the core but there are lots of different types depending on what your interests are, and lots of different places to do them.

      I like getting my hands dirty and building stuff so mechanical engineering was what I chose. I love problem solving too so research and development is a great place to do that.

      I hope this helps. Thanks for the question.

    • Photo: Man Hang Yip

      Man Hang Yip answered on 18 Jun 2016:


      Ask yourself which subject you enjoy most in school and why.
      Ask yourself what you enjoy doing outside of school and why.
      Don’t be afraid to be yourself and be different from others.
      I think it is really important to know what you like.
      If you do what you like, it becomes so much easier, and you will be happy.
      Everyone likes to be around happy people.

      When I was your age, I love history class and also love the experiments we did in science class. I was pretty good in maths. Outside of school, I like inventing new ways of making my daily chores easier (e.g. making sure I pack everything I need to school but only the things I need in school – school bags were heavy where I was as we had no lockers in school). I like re-arranging things at home so that I know where things are and they are at hand when I need to use them.
      When I was a bit older than your age, I needed to choose between history or physics (my school needed me to change). I realized that what I like to do outside school is similar to what an industrial engineer does.
      I enjoyed my university study and found the compulsory courses for industrial engineering really easy and intuitive. I specialised in manufacturing as I want to learn about the processes that lead to good quality and efficient production.
      I started working 20 years ago. I have been designing processes that are easy to follow and give good results. I have been doing project management that involves lots of planning and following of plans. I have also advised how workplace layout should be to make it safe and easy for people using the space.
      It all ties back to what I like 🙂

    • Photo: Jarrod Hart

      Jarrod Hart answered on 23 Jun 2016:


      Well it would only be a good idea to turn out like me if you started out like me in the first place…

      So you would already like science fiction (reading – and also writing, or at least imagining). You would already read books on how things work (computers, WIFI, LCD screens, shampoo… everything). You would already think that doing number puzzles was a pleasure not a torture. You would enjoy trying to imagine infinity when the teacher id droning on. You would go to bed at night trying to figure out what the heck a magnet really ‘is’.

      However if you said no to any of those that is no bad thing, we need everyone to be different! How else will we keep moving forward?

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