Electronic Engineering

Rosalind Warren – Ipswich High School 1987-1994

 I chose engineering as I enjoyed physics and maths but found the pure aspects frustrating; I wanted to see the applications of what I was learning.  I chose to study a general engineering course at university (Cambridge) to leave my options open for as long as possible, and enjoyed learning about structures and mechanics as well as about electronics.  I would recommend a general course as many of my peers who believed they knew what they wanted to specialise in when they started had changed their minds by third year, and ended up following routes that they (and in some cases their sponsoring companies) hadn’t planned.  It is important to establish the balance of academic/mathematical engineering (applied science) and project management in a course, and choose the type of course that you want.  My only regret is not having spent a year studying abroad.

I was sponsored by Ford and worked for them for 18 months, including during a gap year.  This gave me a broad exposure to different departments and I learnt through a brief summer job that I didn’t want to work in a manufacturing environment such as Dagenham Fiesta plant – it was still a good experience.  I suggest trying to obtain summer jobs in a range or companies and/or departments, rather than perhaps returning to the same department in one company every summer because it is easy/local to home/whatever.  It is more difficult to get the same range of experience as a graduate.

At the end of my university course I felt I wanted to do research but chose to do industrial research rather than a Phd.  I worked for Nortel Networks in optical communications research.  The work involved mathematical modelling and experimental work concerning the propagation of light in optical fibres, and in other optical components.  A lot of the work was proof of principle, demonstrating what might be possible in the future if the cost of certain components fell, rather than designing the next product.  During this time I realised that I didn’t really have the patience for research.  Given the downturn in telecoms in general (in 2000-02) there was no opportunity for moving sideways and I clung onto my job for personal reasons and because it was saved making a decision on what to do next.  After 3 years there I was made redundant.  The company had at this point downsized to under half it’s size 2 years previously – an interesting experience, and certainly not a job to life.

I used this opportunity to move to a more development type job, making use of different final year options from university.  I now work in digital signal processing for satellite payloads – for example carrying out switching of channels, or error correction.  Again this work is highly mathematical but my work is far closer to real product.  I am on my first project there (having only been there 5 weeks at the time of writing), taking mathematical code describing the processing to be performed on a satellite and rewriting it in terms of basic electronic building blocks, e.g. AND gates, memory elements.

For the work I’ve been involved in since graduating it is important to enjoy the mathematical element (and both Astrium and Nortel recruited a mixture of engineers and physicists into the type of roles that I had).  However I have friends working in other spheres of engineering who have project management roles, for example doing asset management (of substations, pylons etc) for an electricity board.  A couple of friends have decided that the lack of benefit to people (in telecomms) is too frustrating and have switched to teaching.  There are of course fields of engineering where the benefit to people is far more evident, such as medical engineering, or civil engineering projects for charitable purposes in the third world.