Mapping out your career path is a bit like a game of Snakes and Ladders – aiming for the ladders (e.g. good exam grades), whilst avoiding the snakes (e.g. choosing the wrong course or qualification for you).
Unlike Snakes and Ladder in career planning you make your own luck – so leave nothing to chance. Achieving your career objectives is possible with planning, hard work and a willingness to take advice.
An important first step in planning any career, especially in engineering, is to seek advice from experts. That might a careers advisor at your school or college or it might be a professional service. There are decisions to be made about the choice of subjects to study and what type of qualifications you are after.
Born to Engineer – Engineering Apprenticeships
There are several routes into Engineering and one size doesn’t fit all.
You might be looking at a route into Mechanical Engineering or thinking about Civil Engineering? A University Technical College may be right for you as preparation for the workplace. You may be thinking about University options. If you are already in Further or Higher Education then your institution will certainly have a careers service with advisors keen to help. And Professional Development should always remain on the agenda. Or you want to be an entrepreneur?
Looking for Inspiration?
Want to get a taste of what an appprentership might look like, or see how a how someone got the most out of a-levels? Watch our Born to Engineer videos below.
Faye Banks – Electrical Transmission Engineer
It’s a myth that apprenticeships won’t get you far – Faye’s introduced her to new and exciting opportunities.
Don’t believe anyone who tries to tell you that an apprenticeship won’t get you far in life – listen to Faye instead! Her apprenticeship gave her the opportunity to earn while she learned, and now, in a senior management position at the National Grid, her future is far from gloomy. In fact, Faye’s lighting up the whole nation…
Faye Banks took an apprenticeship in electrical engineering and rewrote the rules for apprenticeships in the process
Lewis Wilde – Apprentice Engineer
“You’re not expected to know everything, you’re actually in the workplace being taught how to do it and eventually, I’ll be able to do it myself!” – Lewis Wilde
One chance conversation led Lewis to a seriously exciting apprenticeship in engineering. Studying for A-levels isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and for Lewis Wilde, taking on an apprenticeship instead was “definitely the best decision” he ever made.
Thanks to a chance meeting with the owner of Island RIBs, an Isle of Wight marine engineering company, and with the support of the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, he’s now in a full-time boatbuilding apprenticeship.
Born to Engineer – Engineering A-Levels
George Edwards – A-Levels and Unversity
A Level student George Edwards had no idea his engineering concept would change his life forever.
A-level Engineering student George Edwards has more on his plate than just his exams. While studying in his final year at the Kings School Canterbury he’s taken what started out as an AS-level project and taken it from conception through to a fully functioning manufactured product, winning a number of national design competitions into the bargain and with a list of international companies looking to license and produce the product overseas.
When he’s not campaigning for a greater focus on UK engineering skills, George consults as a product designer for a range of companies and has some other design ideas that he’s developing for the market.
Nina Parsons – Student Engineer
“I think engineering is about pushing boundaries and analyzing things very critically and questioning, continuously questioning everything” – Nina Parsons
It took just one day at a race-track for Nina Parsons to know that she wanted to be an engineer. Now she’s heading for a career in Formula 1
It took just one day at a race-track for Nina Parsons to know that she wanted to be an engineer. Five years later, she’s heading for a career in Formula 1…
For Nina and her friends at Oxford Brookes, teamwork is the key to building a winning Formula Student racing car. That and paying the closest attention to the small details that make the difference between winning and losing. She’ll need to bring all of those skills into play next year, when she’s working with the Williams Formula 1 team…
