Oh is it my question?
So hi Jess.
Do you want to tell us why you decided to study electrical engineering.
Yeah that’s a good question.
So the reason I decided to study electrical engineering was because I didn’t know what
I wanted to study but I knew I wanted to be in that technology sector and do something
where I could really contribute to future inventions and ways to improve lives.
So I went for electrical as it seemed the most broad and I like maths so that was definitely
a plus.
Tim, who should study electrical engineering?
Well I reckon there’s great opportunities for people who are interested in technology
but also really making a difference.
I think one of the things that electrical engineers have a great opportunity to have
an input in is resolving our power crisis.
If we could achieve having an equal power load over all the days and not just on the
hot Summer days, that would just really reduce a lot of our greenhouse gas issues.
But there’s great opportunities for people doing electrical engineering to do lots of
different types of stuff.
You know there’s a Masters student who studied electrical engineering and he invented a machine
that would test whether newborn babies were well-nourished or not just be looking at how
many blood vessels they had growing in their stomach.
An electrical engineer did that.
Isn’t that amazing?
From the University of Sydney?
You bet.
I knew it.
Why did you choose to study at the University of Sydney?
So, three main reasons.
The first is that its recognised; it’s a good university with a good reputation and
I think that it’s important when you’re telling people where you go for university
and it’s also important when you’re applying for jobs.
The second was the social aspect of the University of Sydney.
So, I have a couple of older friends that already came to the university and told me
about all the societies, clubs and how great their friendship groups were which was definitely
a plus.
Lastly, the convenience of the university.
So, it’s located so close to Central Station and the city, publish transport is amazing
and when you’re choosing a degree like engineering where contact hours are a lot of them, you
definitely want to be at a university that you can get to easily.
What are the entry requirements?
Well if you’re from New South Wales, we’ve got an entry requirement of an ATAR of 92
to get into electrical engineering.
That’s the same if you’re doing a combined degree with arts, science or project management.
You need a little bit more to get into electrical engineering combined with commerce and that’s
95.
You’re doing a combined degree with law and that does have a higher ATAR.
We do have a requirement that you’ve done maths and it is an essential pre-requisite
of a certain level of two-unit maths, but we certainly recommend that students from
New South Wales have done extension one mathematics.
If you are from interstate, they’re the equivalent maths courses and naturally there’s
an ATAR equivalent if you’ve done the IB; I know a lot of our students have done the
IB these days.
What about physics, chemistry and biology?
That’s a common question that comes up as well.
You know it actually isn’t essential to have done those particular courses.
It certainly does help.
There are options of possibly doing a bridging course over the Summer if you haven’t done
physics.
If you were interested in electrical engineering, I would certainly be saying that physics is
probably one that has more relevance and if you didn’t choose chemistry or biology at
high school, that’s not something that’s going to have a really much impact going down
your pathway of electrical.
How do interstate students apply to engineering at Sydney?
So, if you’re not from New South Wales you would need to do an application to the Universities
Admissions Centre in New South Wales, that’s uac.edu.au.
They do all the conversions from your interstate mark into what you need to get into the University
of Sydney.
Can you do a major?
And what are the options?
Look, there are majors available.
Majors are probably more available for students who are doing a single degree because when
you’re doing a combined degree, we actually make the degree a little bit smaller so you
can fit it all within five or six years.
Because you’re interested in the Internet of Things aren’t you?
Correct yes.
Now you do have a little bit more opportunity as part of electrical engineering because
of the structure of that degree that there is a little bit more scope for doing electives
and depth of things, but many of our combined degree students get to pick their major as
part of their second degree.
You know, the major they’re doing as part of their arts, or commerce, or science degree.
The key message I have about majors in engineering is one, you don’t have to do it and two,
you don’t need to make a choice now.
They are generally made up of the subjects you do in third and fourth year, so when you’re
starting first year, take the opportunity to think about, “oh I like this area or
not that one” and if you do want to do a major as part of a single engineering degree,
you can make your choice up in year two or even year three.
So Tim, what work experience do students need to get career ready?
For all of our new students studying engineering, from day one we’re getting them to think
about their future direction as an engineer.
From their very first lecture, their very first experience, they’re gathering up hours
of professional experience that they have to do over the duration of their degree.
Every time that there is a lecture from someone external, every time that they might do some
type of site visit, something interesting, something professionally oriented, they’re
gaining up hours of credits as part of our professional engagement program.
The culmination of that is when you reach third year or fourth year, because all of
our students have to do some period of work experience, generally about six weeks or so.
I know you’re looking forward to be doing that in the near future.
Do you know anyone who lives on campus?
Yeah I do.
I know people that live on campus, really close to campus and live a little bit further
away but have really good travel options to the university as well.
So the university has quite a few residential colleges.
What’s included is accommodation, all your meals, and a lot of extra-curricular activities
like sports, and music and theatre that you’d like to participate in.
There’s also a lot of accommodation depending on price points that are situated just outside
university and those are also really convenient to get to and some offer food and meals as
well.
And then, because it’s so close to the city, I know a few people that live in the city
or live a couple of suburbs across and catch the train or bus into uni.
Do we have to find our own placements?
In principal yes because we think its important that work experience is not just about what
you’ve gained in the workplace for six weeks, but that experience that you have writing
an application, attending an interview, getting rejected, and also hopefully finding success
at some stage.
But we don’t throw you completely in the dark and expect you to do everything.
There’s lots of opportunities we have to give students chances to meet real engineers,
make contacts with different companies, speak to the recruitment officers at lots of universities.
We get lots of offers from companies saying, “we want a work experience person this Summer”
and we’ll make sure that we forward that sort of information to all the students who
potentially need to get it.
One of the opportunities we’ve just created is our own company called “Jacaranda Flame”.
We put together students in multidisciplinary teams and they’ve been working in some really
exciting places.
I’ve seen some fantastic presentations on the work they’ve been doing with transport
for New South Wales, and in those interdisciplinary teams they get the hours they need to do as
part of their work experience.
So, if there was one thing that you really wished you had known when you started university,
what would that have been?
That’s a good question.
That people come into university and do their degrees on different levels of experience.
If you’re someone who hasn’t, for example in electrical engineering, had lots of experience
programming or electronics or putting stuff together, that it’s okay and you’re probably
in the majority of your cohort and to not be intimidated by those who have.
How much time do you spend in placements?
Bow all of our students have to do about six weeks or even more if they potentially wanted
to do so as part of their work experience, and you normally do that in after year three
or year four if you’re a combined degree student.
Are there any scholarships available?
We’ve got lots of different types of scholarships.
You know the students who get the top marks in the HSC, they’ll get some type of scholarship
without actually applying.
But for new students, we’ve got a couple of different scholarships and one of them
is called the Leadership Scholarship.
I think you know a little bit about that one.
I’m actually on the Faculty of Engineering Leadership Scholarship.
It’s a really great one.
We get $18,000 a year for four years which is a huge bonus.
As part of that scholarship, we get so many opportunities on a weekly basis where we can
get together and discuss how we’ve been going and have mentoring opportunities from
industry which have been really useful.
And also just a lot of talks and sessions on how we can develop our leadership, not
only at university but also in the workplace.
Another great pat about the Leadership Scholarship is that we need to do two placements as part
of it and the university helps us looking for these internships.
I’m currently on one right now and it’s been amazing so far.
What career opportunities are there?
Engineers are in demand.
The employment rate of all engineers across Australia is above the national average of
university graduates but in particular in your area of electrical engineering, there’s
some great opportunities thinking about how Australia and the world is moving towards
increased technology.
I mean your particular area, the Internet of Things, how all of our different devices
are talking to each other; you could well be the one who comes up with these really
secure communication protocols that are going to enable your phone to control everything
in your home and we can use these things not just domestically but also to really improve
big business processes to improve our way of life.
I think you’re area of electrical engineering has some great opportunities coming up soon.