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Education & Reference Engineering

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Pixies said:
As long as your talking Civil, if you want to stay in WA you will have no problems finding a job at all, you will probably find that you have several job offers by the beginning of your final year, and if you want there is a lot of potential to work while you completing your degree, which is what I did in my final year.

In WA you will find work all over the state and you will travel quite alot, whether that be working on the mines for extended periods on a single large project, or many more shorter trips for severl projects if you go into consulting.

There is potential to travel overseas especially if you get into some of the larger international companies. But there is so much work in WA at the moment you will find most companies want you to stay here.

It is generally 9-5 if your in the city, but if you are out on big mining projects you will most likely do longer hours. Like any job you will have to put in some extra hours to get things finished on time sometimes.

As i mentioned before I can only really speak from a consultants POV, things are different (and less interesting IMO if your in construction).
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Thanks for the response :thumbsu:
 
Copernicus said:
What do you mean by this? I am curious...
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Just saying the amount of natural resources we have is insane. I mean last I heard we have the worlds longest train, trains. A whole fleet private trains 4k+ long on private rail which ship ore to the ports to send to China.

There is a seam of coal being mined outside Newcastle atm which I've been told is a 110 year supply. That was the last estimate.

The reason why our country is recession proof is mining. Not Labor :rolleyes: The last 10-15 years has seen massive expansion and the next 10-15 years we will be doubling tripling etc mining output. Sites in WA already have plans to triple their infrastructure.
 

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I am in my final year of a degree in Civil Engineering and Commerce. So I don't know how I can really help anyone who wants advice about it as a career (you could ask me a question if yours hasn't been answered already in this thread).

If you want to do Civil Engineering I would suggest that you would want to have very good skills in maths and to a lesser extent Physics and Chemistry, I never did Physics at school at whilst it has made life a little harder it isn't essential. Within Civil Engineering there are many types (Structural, Transport, Hydraulic, Geotechnical, Mining etc), whilst it is good to go into a degree having an idea which of the afforementioned you would like to specialise in it's not essential. As you do the subjects you will find which ones interest you the most (well that's at least what I found). At the start of your degree alot of things can be kind of individual, but towards the end you will notice that the assignments in the main tend to be team based. As others have mentioned 85% of people in lectures are male, if that is a serious problem just do a double degree in commerce where 60% of the people in lectures are female.
 
Hi All,

I am a long time reader of big footy but have never posted before. I thought I could add to this thread so I signed up.

I studied at a Perth public high school and then went to UWA to get a process (chemical) engineering degree and have been working for 6 years. I started out working for a large multinational oilfield services company. Worked FIFO for them for 2 years before leaving to get a more stable city job as the travel had burned me out a bit. The work was mainly hands-on supervision of teams gathering exploration data and interpreting that technical data. It was exciting and interesting work that I really enjoyed and was a bit sorry to have to give up.
Luckily I got another job I enjoyed working for a chemical manufacturing company. I worked for them in an operational role supervising a manufacturing plant. No people management but lots of technical troublshooting and logistics management. Also some small project work. I have recently moved into a managerial role in this company.

What do engineers do? It is a tough question to answer and there are many different engineering roles as someone has alreay pointed out. I think that there are three types of engineering. Operational, Design and consulting. They are all different and the best engineers can do or have done al three types. Design is very similar to what you will learn at uni. Operational is all about supervising the building of the design and helping make it work after it has been built. Consulting is all about evaluating the economic/environmental/sustainablility aspects of a design of existing operation.

I would get into engineering if you like problem solving. This is what engineering is really all about.

I will try to answer some of the questions posed on this thread in other posts but if anyone has any other questions feel free to ask and I will answer if I can.
 
Stan Van Gundy said:
I'm also thinking of doing engineering next year but the problem is I stupidly didn't decide to physics this year. Would I still be able to do engineering without having done year 12 physics?. I am doing Chemistry and Maths Specialist currently, as well as Biology and Psychology. I should get enough points to get into the course but I'm worried that without having done physics I will be at a huge disadvantage.
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Shouldnt be a problem I wouldn't have thought. Maths and physics are pretty interchangeable at the higher levels. If the course you want to do needs physics as pre-requisite you may be able to do a bridging course during your summer break to get up to speed
 
Pixies said:
I'm a graduate civil engineer guys, happy to help answer any questions you have.

Only been working for 2.5 years, but I can say I have been very happy with my choice of career so far. The greatest thing is that every project is different, every day is different so I can't think of a time where I have actually been bored at work.

The pay isnt fantastic as a graduate, you are basically getting paid in your first 3 years as a graduate to learn, but after that it starts paying off.

Bear in mind that uni, while the subjects aren't really that difficult if your prepared to study, and obviously you need to be reasonably good at maths but by no means a genious, there is a shit load of content to cover (in civil especially) and there will be alot of late nights and weekends spent studying.

Anyway let me know if you have any specific questions i'll try to answer
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Can't speak for everyone obviously but the pay where I am would be around the 50-60k mark for a first year grad. Then steps up to about 100k by the end of the 3 year grad course. If you are still in engineering after 5 to ten years out of uni you should be able to earn at least 150k.

Add 50% to these numbers if you choose to work in remote locations. i.e. Mines, Rigs or large construction projects.
 
Hi all, I am in Year 12 and am definitely thinking of being some sort of engineer, probably civil and definitely at UWA.

My subjects and marks (so far) are as follows:
Maths 3C/3D 84
Chemistry 3A/3B 67
Physics 3A/3B 55
English 3A/3B 55
Accounting 2A/2B 81

I have had my TER predicted at 88, how realistic is this? and will that get me into engineering? Also, will these choice of subjects be enough?

Thanks.
 
scooterselwood said:
Hi all, I am in Year 12 and am definitely thinking of being some sort of engineer, probably civil and definitely at UWA.

My subjects and marks (so far) are as follows:
Maths 3C/3D 84
Chemistry 3A/3B 67
Physics 3A/3B 55
English 3A/3B 55
Accounting 2A/2B 81

I have had my TER predicted at 88, how realistic is this? and will that get me into engineering? Also, will these choice of subjects be enough?

Thanks.
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Best to check the WA equivalent of the VTAC guide.
 
scooterselwood said:
Hi all, I am in Year 12 and am definitely thinking of being some sort of engineer, probably civil and definitely at UWA.

My subjects and marks (so far) are as follows:
Maths 3C/3D 84
Chemistry 3A/3B 67
Physics 3A/3B 55
English 3A/3B 55
Accounting 2A/2B 81

I have had my TER predicted at 88, how realistic is this? and will that get me into engineering? Also, will these choice of subjects be enough?

Thanks.
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That maths score will scale you massively.

88 is pretty realistic TBH.
 

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scooterselwood said:
Hi all, I am in Year 12 and am definitely thinking of being some sort of engineer, probably civil and definitely at UWA.

My subjects and marks (so far) are as follows:
Maths 3C/3D 84
Chemistry 3A/3B 67
Physics 3A/3B 55
English 3A/3B 55
Accounting 2A/2B 81

I have had my TER predicted at 88, how realistic is this? and will that get me into engineering? Also, will these choice of subjects be enough?

Thanks.
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Your Maths and Chem seem to be strong points, so Chemical Engineering could be your go. And with bonus points, I'm sure that'll get you in. Another thing I'd like to add about Chemical Engineering, is the false belief that you need heaps of Chemistry knowledge. While the basics are essential, I soon learned last semester how pointless 2nd year Chemistry was. The fact it isn't compulsory for people doing a double degree further exemplified that. By 2nd year the content focuses more on the people doing a scientific type degree, except for a small section on Thermodynamics. This may be different elsewhere, but it was a damn long semester doing a subject you have absolutley no motivation for. You certainly need 1st year, but that is it.
 

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