How to Choose A Level Subjects for Career in Engineering

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So how do you pick the right subjects for a career in engineering?
I've got three tips for you, plus an amazing interview with an award-winning engineer.
Hello!
Welcome.
I'm Hayley Loren and if this is your very first time here, I am an engineer in the renewable
energy industry, and my channel is all about giving you lots of tips, advice and help about
becoming an engineer and being an engineer, and also lots of cool interviews with awesome
people, and just general engineering stuff.
So if that sounds good to you then be sure to subscribe by clicking the button underneath
this video and the little bell that's right next to it.
So choosing subjects for school or university can feel like a really daunting process because
obviously you want to have an amazingly successful career and you want to set yourself up in
the right way.
But how do you even go about doing that?
I want to share with you an amazingly inspiring conversation that I had with Anna Ploszajski
who as I said is an award winning engineer and she does lots of presenting and stand
up shows.
After this I'm going to give you three key bits of advice for choosing your subjects.
Let's get to the conversation.
Today on another interview, engineering interview…I feel like I should name it something.
I don't know.
Hayley's Engineering….Videos.
[laugh] Can you please give us a bit of a background of who you are.
Yes, so I am a materials engineer, I'm currently a post-doc and a department called the Institute
of Making in UCL, and I've just taken you to visit it.
It's an incredible place which is sort of half scientific research institution where
scientist like me make things.
And half make space workshop where anyone in UCL can come and get their hands-on materials
and make things.
So, we've got potters wheels, and 3D printers and we do workshops, and also lots of public
open days.
Let's go back to the very beginning ..of life……well my parents….[laugh] … what
got you into science in the first place and what sparked you to think, okay I want to
do this for A level and for university.
At school I was quite an all-rounder.
I got pretty good GCSE's in most things so I was never really a one track mind scientist
kind of person.
So I think my draw to science and engineering is more that I quite like solving problems,
and at school I actually quite enjoyed doing maths.
For A levels I did maths, further maths, physics and music.
And the reason I ended up in materials science, which in itself is an engineering subject,
a sort of sub-section of engineering, is a bit of a strange story.
So I applied to all the universities to study physics.
In the year that I applied, I applied to Oxford, and in that year, they were really low on
materials applicants so they asked the physicists if they wanted to apply for both subjects
because it's a very similar skill set required.
Sort of sciences and maths really.
So, I thought like, yeh, fine, I've got nothing to lose by doing that.
I applied for physics and I interviewed for physics, and my physics interviews were a
car crash.
Oh no!
Like partly it was because I was really ill.
I was like snotting on the page and they were like asking me all these physics questions
and I was just like, ahhh I just want to go home!
Oh bless you.
So literally! [laugh] ever the comedian!
So that was a bit of a train wreck it has to be said.
And on the final (so you stay up for a couple of days at the university to do like all these
interviews), and on the final morning I had a materials interview.
I went to the materials department and it was just a really lovely experience.
They had this big steel engine block and they like lumped it down on the table and they
were like how do you think this broke?
And then you kind of talk about how you think materials break and then we did a couple of
maths questions, which were a lot easier than the physics ones.
I remember my dad bringing a letter to me in my bedroom on Christmas eve and he like
left me to open it and then I opened it and it was like, we'd love to offer you a position
for materials science.
And then I told him and he was like…erm…is that okay?
Like he wanted to wait for my reaction and I was like,, yeh I guess I'm studying materials
science now!
I googled it, tried to see what it was.
Erm, but it was a really happy accident because I think it's a much better subject for me.
It's amazing, yeh, that you ended up doing something that just fitted when you hadn't
even know about it and a lot of people I know who watch this, some of my audience, they're
deciding like what A levels they're taking.
And they're thinking okay, so how are my A levels going to influence what I end up
doing.
And it's such a hard decision, but it just shows that things tend to just work out how
they're meant to.
Yeh and it doesn't have to hard decision, or rather the decision doesn't have to dictate
the rest of your life.
Like as I said I chose to do an AS level in Spanish instead of chemistry, erm but I've
learnt, I've picked up the chemistry that I needed through the undergraduate and through
doing the PhD.
Hey welcome back.
So Anna ended up going down a path that she hadn't even anticipated and it went really
really well for her.
Of the back of this I'm going to give you three key tips for choosing your subjects.
Number 1, science and or maths is important.
So as an engineer it's really important that you do have a technical basis, but it's
not really critical, which ones that you do.
So for Anna she didn't actually do Chemistry for A level but then she actually went on
to do an Engineering Doctorate within the chemistry department at UCL, and she just
picked up all the chemistry along the way.
Number 2.
Follow your passion.
So going back to what we were saying in that it doesn't really matter which ones you
do as long as you do have a technical background.
The important factor is choose what you are genuinely interested in, follow that passion
that you have.
Number 3.
Be open to opportunities.
So Anna originally had the plan to start studying for physics, and it was Oxford that said,
oo do you want to interview for materials science, even though she hadn't heard of
it.
This opportunity, at that point, has created this whole world and this whole career or
her.
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How to Choose A Level Subjects for Career in Engineering | ft. Anna Ploszajski

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