In this Section:
Where are they now? What winning the Engineering Subject Centre Student Award means to previous winners and the impact it has had on their personal development
Each year the Engineering Subject Centre throws down the gauntlet to undergraduate engineering students and challenges them to think about how they learn, how they are taught and to share their expectations and experiences with us. The question to which they are asked to respond varies from year to year but always yields a flurry of thought-provoking and enlightening contributions from the student body and the young people who are moved to get involved are are passionate, eloquent and genuinely excited about what they are studying.
2008’s winner (who wrote on ‘what makes a good lecturer?’), Warren Rieutort-Louis, is a fine example of this. A fourth year engineering student at Cambridge University, Warren is also an active participant in the Microsoft Student Partner Programme which consists of the brightest and most innovative student developers and technology enthusiasts from universities around the world. We asked Warren how it feels to win the Engineering Subject Centre’s Student Award:
“Thrilled. That word best describes how I felt when I was informed that I was a winner for this year's student essay competition. I felt very passionate about this year's theme and was honoured to have been able to share my ideas about education in my subject. The essay competition gives you a great chance to express yourself in a different-from-usual form on themes beyond your academic curriculum and help reflect and paint your views on your learning experience at university. After being awarded the prize, I received a plethora of comments from lecturers, students and even alumni, all eager to share their insight on what I had written, opening many opportunities for dialogue and discussion. Independent book authors have approached me to talk about some of my ideas for research and publication purposes and some of my great lecturers asked me to expand on some points that I had made in the essay to help refine their teaching:- I hope that my small contribution will help future generations enjoy an even better learning environment than I have already experienced.”
We couldn’t have put it better ourselves, Warren. The ‘opportunities for dialogue and discussion’ opened up by the Student Award scheme are what it’s all about and it is heartening to hear first-hand that this is precisely what is happening. It may be pertinent to mention here that Warren’s entry went on to win the overall Subject Network prize, beating off stiff competition from other academic disciplines.
Katherine Clough, winner of the 2006 Award, graduated from Oxford with a first in Engineering Science. Although she has not gone on to a career in engineering (instead she works as a Tax Advisor in the City and will qualify as a Chartered Accountant later this year) she says that the ability to problem-solve gained from her engineering studies has been invaluable and, although at first she was less knowledgeable about financial systems than her counterparts with degrees in economics, finance or business studies, her logical, structured approach soon levelled the playing field. Katherine hopes to take her career in a new direction, writing for the accountancy press, and says that winning the Engineering Subject Centre’s Student Award has given her the confidence and self-belief to pursue this path.
Martin Stanley, the 2005 Award winner, graduated that same year with a first class MEng in Civil Engineering from Imperial College. Unlike Katherine, Martin says that he was “always going to be a civil engineer” and now works as a Project Engineer/Manager for a geotechnical contractor based across the UK and Ireland. He says that winning the Engineering Subject Centre’s award gave him confidence in his ability and encouraged him to enter other competitions – he was a finalist in the 2006 NCE (New Civil Engineer) Graduate Awards and is currently shortlisted for the 2009 Ground Engineering Awards in the £1m+ UK project category for his work on the East London Line.
So, some fascinating insights into the value of the Student Award, not only as a catalyst for dialogue between teachers and students but also as a talisman for the winner’s self-confidence and ambition. This year that winner could be you...