"The discussions I have with my mentor are useful because he can suggest areas in the company that I might want to go into."
My PhD was in gas turbine fluid dynamics, looking at the stability of the device and making sure it was safe for operation, and particularly ways of ensuring safe operation - changing features in the engine, that sort of thing. During my PhD I did a lot of computational work and some experiments. The computational work has definitely proved directly useful in Frazer-Nash - some of the projects that I've had here I would have found very difficult if I hadn't got that technical background.
I've been fortunate really to work on a variety of different projects, so that's been interesting, kind of stepping up a level in terms of the complexity of those kinds of calculations. But there's also been a variety of work and looking at areas that I hadn't done in my PhD at all, like stress analysis and heat transfer.
In terms of career progression and developing, the discussions I have with my mentor are useful because he can suggest areas in the company that I might want to go into or areas which have got particularly interesting work at the moment, because obviously it varies a lot between departments.
I think if you enjoy doing the technical work, but also having the relationship with the client and very much seeing things from beginning to end, and seeing the financial and the business management and the project management side of things, if those things appeal to you then I think Frazer-Nash is a good place to work.
