• Question: Do you need any specific skills already to become an engineer, or can you just decide you want to become one and start training?

    Asked by Engyneero to Alejandra, Ana, Daniel, Sophie, Todd, Zach on 9 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Alejandra Aranceta

      Alejandra Aranceta answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      Hi Engyneero!
      The wonderful thing about skills, is that you are able to develop them. It takes practice (a lot of it!) but I would definitely say that if you want to study engineering, you can develop any of the skills needed (like maths, physics, electronics, programming) and in fact, you develop them at school making sure that you choose the right subjects. I guess you decide you want to be one, and then you start training, practicing to become one.

    • Photo: Ana Gallego

      Ana Gallego answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      Hi Engyneero,

      When I started this job making prosthetics I didn’t know a lot of what I know now. Before I was kind of training to work in automotive or aerospace industry.

      I think the starting point is knowing the basics and then building up on it. There are thousands of courses out there that you can do to improve your skills or areas that you think you need to learn more about.

      Knowone has all the skills since day 1 and also, most of the skills are learn whilst on the job, rather than learnt in University.

      At the end of the day, what matters is your mindset. If you are determined, you can do anything 😀

    • Photo: Sophie Cox

      Sophie Cox answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      Hi Engyneero,

      I totally agree with Alejandra. When I was at school, I was encouraged to chose the subjects that I enjoyed the most and because I enjoyed them it meant I ended up doing better at them than others. I didn’t really know I was interested in becoming an engineer until year 12 (sixth form).

      Skills that would help you get a head start in engineering would be good mathematics, understanding of the sciences and also an ability to solve problems. These are definitely things that you will practise at school.

      Are you interested in becoming an engineer?

    • Photo: Zach Welshman

      Zach Welshman answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      I’d say any skill can be learned. If you look up the UK STANDARD FOR PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING COMPETENCE you will find exactly what skills engineers need. This is very detailed, but I use this for my own development. Essentially it is a framework for UK engineers regardless of discipline.

      Aside from skills i’d say characteristics are important such as resilience because experiments or methods rarely work perfect the first time. Kind of similar when your teach er introduces a new topic and you have to re-read it lots of times. Teamwork because you as a single engineer rarely have all the answers. Finally, enjoying a good challenge.

    • Photo: Daniel Morse

      Daniel Morse answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      Anyone can be an engineer.

      You can train and learn skills through education or higher education, you can teach yourself a lot of the time too, and also learning on the job so to speak – like apprentices.

      I think the passion and enthusiasm to learn, as well as the ability to be able to learn, understand and put into practice a lot of things is important too. So being able to do maths (which you can improve upon – you don’t need to be an expert to begin with), or design etc.

    • Photo: Todd Burton

      Todd Burton answered on 13 Mar 2017:

      Skills can be learnt! I would say it helps to be logical and enjoy creativity and problem solving. On the more boring side, a university will ask for a minimum of 2 sciences at A-Level one of which will probably have to be maths.

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