I am in agreement with Karla, having gained good practical experience as a Radio Officer in the Merchant Navy, before deciding to embark on full time tertiary education. It was then interesting to note fellow students with an apprenticeship background where like myself, more committed to achieving a postive end result.

 

The academic learning part was more readily understandable through being able to relate to previous partical experience. This is why undergraduates should seek placement opportunities which unfortunately despite the claims by companies of lack of engineering talent, are still all too few.


Ron McMurtrie

I enjoyed all my working career. I wish I had been told from the beginning that other than the technical skills that I gained there is still the possibility of starting my own business.


I need to learn business skills.


The business opportunities are there but you need to know more about marketing in delivering your products or services.


Chris Chew

Here is the 'trunki' presentation.


It is called

Making 'Trunki' from a worldwide supply train

Hi James,


I couldn't agree more, I think it it's to do with "fear of failure": if the expectation is that success is a steady job, house, car, pension etc then you're unlikely to become an entrepreneur - you have to be prepared to lose it all one day and then win it back again. And based on cases I've seen that very much comes from family background. I often feel that there is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation here in the engineering field, it's seen as a "steady" industry and so attracts people who like that sort of reliability, and so the cycle continues. The James Dyson's tend to loudly proclaim themselves as outsiders - which I think is a shame for multiple reasons.


Many years ago I fancied starting up a business, but when I realised it would involve mortgaging our house to the point where we would lose it if I failed I pulled out (same story with a possible management buy-out I was on the fringes of once). If you look at serial entrepreneurs they would have done this without a qualm. The various tie-in books to "Dragon's Den" are very interesting when you look at successful entrepreneur's backgrounds.


So back to the thread, I wish I'd known more about the psychology of personal motivations - I think I'd have been quite interested if that had been in my degree course.


To take this in a slightly different direction - this bother's me about this government's excitement about the "gig economy". My experience is that many (most?) engineers really don't want to be talking their way into a new job each week - although a few (with different backgrounds) love it, they're already the self employed consultants with flash cars we're all envious of!


Cheers, Andy

Shee Chew and Andy Millar. I agree about the business side. The closest I came to 'entrepreneurial engineers' was with contract draughtsmen in South Africa in the 90's. A young bloke in blue jeans and a new Benz was probably a contract draughtsman. Growing up my idea of business ownership was a Greek-owned bakery or cafe. My mother told me quite often ' the clever kids get an education and then work for the not-so clever.' The young bloke with nothing to lose and no responibilities is in a perfect position to take a chance. When you have a wife and children to worry about it becomes more difficult to take risks. I read about entrepreneurship and am always looking for an opportunity. I saw a couple of 'engineering' franchises but do not have the funds to buy in.

Thanks for everyone that has added to this thread, I'm seeing some interesting themes and it's really great to see the diversity of responses and paths that people have chosen into engineering careers.  


Karla, you raise an interesting point about volunteering, we try as much as we can to get members to volunteer at an early stage and have started to actively promote volunteering through our YP Buddy Role which is specifically aimed at younger professionals supporting other students and young professionals because we want to try and widen the pool of potential volunteers and share the benefits of this :)

Just a quick reply for the "young generation" (that makes me feel ancient...). We talk about future-proofing, and this term applies to your career. Get as many academic qualifications under your belt as you possibly can while you're still in "college mode". You never know what's in store for you in the foreseeable future. I had to take an additional qualification two decades into my career, and while it was very enjoyable and I got good grades, one of the hardest parts of the whole process was getting back into studying mode after twenty plus years, whilst holding down a demanding full time job, carrying on with several voluntary roles in the community and raising a family.