Today, our own Jamon Windeyer (that’s me!) chats about his experiences as an Electrical Engineering student at UNSW.
1. What degree/course are you studying? How long have you been studying? Full time/part time?
I’ve been studying a Bachelor of Engineering with Honors for the last year and a half.
2. What University/Institution are you studying at and why did you choose them?
I am studying at the University of New South Wales. Choosing them was tough, I was really torn between UTS and UNSW. Both have amazing facilities. Both had different things about the campus that I loved. In the end, I got a scholarship to study at UNSW, which made the decision much easier for me.
3. How many years will you study for?
I’m in an interesting situation. I’m a Coop scholar, which means that I get a lot of industry experience integrated into my degree. This takes my degree, which is normally a 4-year degree, and extends it to five years. I’ll be taking a whole year off from university to work full time in 2018.
4. What has been your favourite part of the course so far?
I was lucky enough to intern at an engineering company over the Summer; that was an incredible experience. Getting hands on with some real work as an electrical engineer was challenging, but it cemented the fact that I’d made the right choice with where I’m heading in my professional career.
5. What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced?
The university environment has been a big challenge for me in a variety of ways. The learning style is much more independent; this doesn’t overly bother me though. I am an independent learner. But it is very different. There is something comforting about the smaller groups of high school, being a small fish in a huge pond was definitely an adjustment and one I continue to make.
My internship was also challenging. I was thrust into lots of new scenarios and I had to learn extremely quickly to keep up. It taught me a lot and I am better for it!
6. Was the course everything you expected it to be? Were there any surprises?
To be honest, there is a LOT more computing in Electrical Engineering than I thought there would be. When I pictured Electrical Engineering I pictured lots of circuit work, lots of design work, all that sort of stuff. Turns out a sizeable portion of my subjects have been computing based! Right now, three quarters of my subjects have me doing some form of programming/coding. Even at my internship, most of my work involved working with new programming languages or IDE’s.
7. What is the most interesting thing you’ve covered/learnt so far?
Thankfully, those computing aspects of my course were a pleasant surprise. I love every bit of it! Without a doubt, the computing subjects have been the most interesting part of my degree. People have told me I should have done a Computer Science degree, and maybe they are right, but I love the hardware stuff too. For me, the Electrical Engineering degree is a better fit, so I can fulfill my long time love of hardware and my newer love of software.
8. Do you have a clear career path or job position in mind? Do you think your degree will equip you with the skills and knowledge to pursue this?
I don’t really have an exact idea about what sort of graduate position I’ll be looking for in 2020, but I’m hoping to figure that out when I do my year of full time work in 2018. I may even stay back and do a Master’s Degree, lecture my way through a PhD, who knows!
What I definitely know is that long term I want to manage an Engineering Firm in some capacity. Whether that’s one that I start or one that I’ve found and loved, that doesn’t bother me, but being in some sort of management position that lets me work with clients and make some big decisions has been a long term goal ever since I decided I wanted to be an engineer. UNSW offers courses on Engineering Management, so I know I’ll be set for that!
9. Have you or will you complete any work experience? Does your institution encourage this?
As aforementioned, I’ve already interned at an engineering company, and I’ll do a full year of full time work in 2018. The work experience I’ve already done was incredibly challenging, but also massively beneficial in various ways. I learnt to use some pretty key pieces of software, learned a lot about communication protocols, and more. Perhaps even more important though was the experience of being in an Engineering workplace, interacting with professionals and learning about their projects.
UNSW puts a big emphasis on industry experience for engineers; 60 days industrial training is a mandatory part of every degree. I’m lucky that being part of the Coop scholarship takes care of that for me.
10. Describe a day in the life of an Electrical Engineering student.
My longest day this semester is a 9am-9pm on Thursdays; so I’ll chat about that day. My Thursday is extremely intense, and it definitely crams a lot into the one day. I have classes for all my subjects on Thursday: Electronics, Embedded System Design, Software Construction and Mathematics. It’s definitely a long day, but given how long my travel time is to/from UNSW (about 2.5-hours door to door), I like to pack my days full and take days off where I can!
I get to university at about 8:30am after a 2-hour struggle with traffic on the M2. My first class isn’t until 11:00am, but I get there early for the free parking. Living the budget life. I spend that money on a coffee instead and take some time to study at my favourite coffee shop. Oh, the food at UNSW is awesome; just saying.
Study time like this is something I value highly, and I try to take it at every opportunity. As an Engineer, I don’t have too many submitted tasks, save for the odd piece of code for Computing, or Engineering Report. For most of my subjects, 60% of my mark comes from the final exam, so keeping on top of the content is super important.
My first class of the day is an Electronics lecture. For HSC Physics students, we are doing a far more in-depth version of what you do with PN junctions and transistors. The course is extremely challenging, but very fulfilling when I (eventually) click with the content. It’s ridiculously difficult, but rewarding.
Following that is a few small group tutorials for Statistics and Electronics, and then a lab session for Electronics. I seriously love how hands on my degree is, since every single one of my subjects has a lab component this semester. For me, getting my hands dirty and actually testing/measuring a circuit, or running a program on a development board: It teaches me way more than the theoretical exercises ever could.
Quick break for a proper dinner (sometimes I’m healthy, but just as often I say “stuff this” and get a HSP), and then a computing lab to finish the night. Computing is one of my electives; I loved the fundamental computing aspects of my degree so much that I decided to take extra computing subjects! That’s the incredible thing about Electrical Engineering, it is extremely broad. You can tailor it absolutely any way you choose and make it suit your interests. These labs are an awesome dynamic, probably my favourite class at the moment. They require me learning (to some level) a good half a dozen programming languages, so it’s challenging, but extremely rewarding.
I’ve had a read of what I’ve written, and I realise how much I cram into one Thursday. Two (or even three) labs on the same day is demanding on the eyes and the mind, let alone combining that with lectures and tutorials. I love what I am learning about though, which makes it much less cumbersome. Plus, I get a sleep in on Fridays. So you know. There’s that.
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