The biggest defeat in life is when you’re defeated by your
own expectations...
After having an amazing first year studying Chemical
Engineering, I was super excited to come back to university after my summer
break only to find that it wasn’t even remotely close to what I had expected.
All of last year I kept hearing seniors say that second year was the toughest
year on the degree and slowly by slowly I too began to believe that. From the
first day itself, 2nd year made me live through things I had never
imagined.
Now, I know you’re all expecting a tale of misery and
torture that students often love to empathize with but my story is way
different. My expectation of the course being tormenting was blown right out of
the window when the course gave me 3 of the best experiences an engineering
student could experience.
1. Guest Lecturers from the industry.
We have all imagined ourselves having
intelligent conversations with experts at some point in our future. However,
for a 2nd year Chemical Engineering Student at the University of
Sheffield this is a dream that comes true so quickly. As part of some modules
such as particle science, we had the opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge
from industrial experts like the lead researcher from Nestle and Astra-Zeneca.
As an added incentive, we got insight into some of the projects and research
that they and their representative companies were working on. Be it zero-water
consuming process plants in Mexico or innovation and design into producing machines
that provide the correct consistency and temperature of baby food. The guest
lecturers introduce a new style of teaching and relieve us from the monotony of
having the same lecturer week-in-week-out.
2. Joining the Sheffield Engineering Leadership
Academy.
SELA is a prestigious extra-curricular
program that runs for two years alongside your course. This program is focused
on bridging the gap in the engineering industry by equipping the future
engineers with skills and resources. Entry to this program is highly
competitive and thanks to the various team work challenges and soft skills that
I acquired in year 1 of my course, I was able to get into the program alongside
19 other individuals from various engineering disciplines.
3. Extensive career planning sessions.
An ancient saying says, ‘The early bird
catches the worm.’ Here, at TUoS, not only do they wake you up early (all pun
intended) but also they ensure to instill in you all the skills you need to
sore high up in the skies of your success. As a second year student, I am
constantly engaged in one-on-one sessions for careers development with my
personal tutor. In addition, we had the opportunity to get advice from
individuals from the careers service department and have them review and assess
our cv’s.
If that was not enough, we have a dedicated
careers advisor who sends in emails for intership and placement opportunities. Also,
we get to attend several networking events with industrial experts and alumni
that are able to then give us more insights into our choosen fields. Basically,
it is like a real life version of LinkedIn isn’t it?
It’s been 9 weeks into my 1st semester and even
though I sometimes feel stressed about deadlines and my future as a whole. I
know for a fact that my department has got my back and they are more than
willing to go the extra mile in the name of my future.
The biggest defeat in life is when you’re defeated by your
own expectations... So, in as much as I had expected to be defeated by the
intensity of 2nd year, all I failed at was my expectation; which in
my view is one of the best defeats ever.
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