Background: Bath University – Civil and Structural Engineering
I support Senior and other Design Engineers in the company by working on design on modelling and computer-generated building elements using software like RAM, Bentley software to design slabs, columns, beams, takedowns, calculations.
We had a Careers Open Day at my university. They explained Robert Bird Group are specialists in design.
The Graduate Engineering Programme looked quite cool because you can switch between departments such as Construction Engineering and Geotech, which gives you diverse skills and helps you test out where you would like to specialise during your career. I find it quite exciting to learn on projects from skyscrapers to the many other things Robert Bird Group does.
I found transitioning to a 9-5 job quite hard at first. You get to do interesting stuff and meet friends after work, but when you’re at university you have to motivate yourself and if you don’t do it, no one is going to chase you and you can just relax. Meanwhile in the professional working environment I need to work to deadlines and have submissions completed in time for the client!
Compared to the Graduate Engineering Programme, my university experience was quite different as I mainly studied the principles. Working at Robert Bird Group I use final element analysis models, and do hand calculations, which I never did at university.
Another thing is the engineering approach and assumptions. At university you always get a set outcome, or a set result and you follow the calculation. At Robert Bird Group you have to find your own variables as the calculation is the easy bit – leading up to it is the difficult part.
I’ve been working on two projects. The first project was Elizabeth House where I was working on slab design and then I started working on a data centre. I find it exciting as I can see my design being built when I have been on site, and I get a sense of appreciation of what engineers and other people do behind the scenes.
Part of what I enjoy about the graduate programme is I get the opportunity to do stuff that I’m interested in. For example, I’m proud of the sustainable concrete research and presentation I prepared for the team to go out to universities with to educate other engineering students. I was also able to present this to the business. This gave me great opportunities to develop new skills outside my technical training.
I’d say don’t say “no”. For example, what I have learnt is to go away and think about new ways of finding solutions to the client needs and collaborate as a team. If you are a graduate and you are given work and you don’t know how to do it, try to work around it. I would also try doing other things as well like going to industry events and making connections. Engineering is great as to a certain extent you can help change the world around you.
