Interviewing Will Kintish by Hemanshi Galaiya

Earlier this year, the Sheffield Engineering Leadership Academy (SELA) organised a networking skills session for its members. A few of our ambassadors are current members of this program and have been speaking volumes in praise of the session and the facilitator - Will Kintish.

One of our ambassadors - Hemanshi Galaiya had the opportunity to interact with Will and convince him to make this amazing video to answer a few questions for us.

You can also have a look on the interview with Will Kintish.

To read about the networking session have a look at the blog post written by Lukas Wai Lau Keat:

http://ieasheffield.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/will-kintish-networking-session.html

To read more about SELA have a look at the blog post written by Hemanshi Galaiya:

http://ieasheffield.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/sheffield-engineering-leadership.html

Engineering360: Life through an Engineer’s Eyes by Ronak Sharma

Hello, World!! Are you one of those people who is interested in Engineering but never got the opportunity to see how it is actually practised at the University of Sheffield? If so you would be interested in knowing about this project called ‘Engineering360’ which I was a part of, along with 10 other students.

I am part of an organisation called Sheffield Engineering Leadership Academy (SELA) which provided me with the opportunity to work on this project. The aim of this project was to organise a public engagement activity to promote engineering at the University of Sheffield. Being such a big responsibility, I felt that the theme for this engagement activity should be something ground-breaking. We began with a long brainstorming session during which we agreed it was important to strike the right note so that people would feel inspired about engineering. We began by filming some incredible 360˚ videos about engineering at Sheffield (TUoS is one of best in Engineering!). We focussed on this because in today’s world people are attracted to experiencing new technology, so we used this approach, spreading the message about engineering in Sheffield across the world.  This event was also featured as part of the Sheffield Festival of Science and Engineering (SFOSE: link below) which was a great help to us to target the right audience which was local people from Sheffield.

So, about my experience. Hmmm, I had a mixed experience during this project. It was very exciting but also a bit daunting as it was the first time I was involved in organising such a big event!  We started very professionally making timelines using Gantt Charts and organising weekly meetings but as it is rightly said ‘Humans are bound to make mistakes’. This expression completely defines the progress of our project, suddenly we found ourselves with only two months until the event and we hadn’t made any progress. Although this part of the project came as a shock to me, it taught me an important lesson about effective team management and project planning. Since time was limited, rather than just focusing on a specific task, I was involved in various roles throughout the course of the project. We needed some good content for the videos, so I decided that we should contact companies local to Sheffield and everyone agreed to that idea.

So, I began the project with the responsibility of negotiating with companies to allow us to film some of the cool stuff they design and produce. I really enjoyed this task as I improved my communication skills and also broadened my professional network. One lesson I learned from this task was that if people don’t reply to your emails within 2 working days then you should call them up (emails are useless as the first point of contact if you are in rush like me). Finally, after pestering some companies, I was able to convince a few companies like AMRC and Tribosonics to contribute to this project and inspire people about what they do. For more effective filming, we had to buy our own 360˚ camera (how cool is that!). After all the footage was collected, it was time to make something worthwhile out of it. So, I suggested that it would be nice to design a teaser to excite people about this project. For this bit of the task, I would have to thank Natalka (International Engineering Ambassador Scheme Co-ordinator) for a session she organised with Corporate Information and Computing Services (CICS) to share some tips on filming and editing videos. Although I was still an amateur, I was able to help my friend with the main story line and the content for the teaser and also helped a bit in editing the clip. I would have to admit it to you guys that never I had imagined in my life that video editing would require so much time. Just to create a 40 seconds clip I had to spend 8 hours in the Diamond! (the Engineering building at UoS). If anyone of you had any experience in video editing, you would understand my pain. Eventually, I was very happy with the clip and if you want to have a look at my hard work, just scroll at the end of the page.

After this role, I moved on to help with the marketing of this project. One of the reasons I took this role was because I was a bit afraid of it, but I wanted to challenge myself and see how difficult it would be. When I began the task, I had no clue where I was heading. So, I began by seeking advice from a marketing team, at the University. Taking into account that in today’s society people are always on Facebook or Twitter and other social media. I assigned a member of the team to market our project through social media. Once the leaflets for the project were designed and printed, I had to decide how to distribute them. We were fortunate enough to have a stall at one of the events during the SFOSE called ‘Discovery Night’. This was a great opportunity for the promotion of our project as I was able to show local people how marvellous engineering is. I still remember the amazing expressions of people when they first put the VR headset on their eyes and saw engineering all around them from machines to students working on them.


To conclude our project, we organised a final event called ‘Behind the Scenes’. It was attended by local people during which we were able to share all the work that had gone into this project and we also distributed some VR headsets. I had advertised our final session at many other SFOSE events and I have to admit that my hard work paid off. I was surprised at the large number of people that turned up to our session and seeing people getting excited about engineering at Sheffield in 360˚, made me realise that our project has been successful. I felt proud of the whole team as we delivered a successful project without having any prior experience. We also achieved our most important aim of the project which was to engage people with engineering.

This project gave me the opportunity to make mistakes but to go on and learn from them and not repeat them in the future. Everybody worked very hard on this project trying to manage both academics and this project. But my advice to you is that you shouldn’t fear things if you are passionate about gaining new skills because I tell you at the end of the day it can be a lot of fun and you feel good about giving something back to the society. For me, the experience of working in a multidisciplinary team, with such great people was the best thing that I have gained so far from the University. If you guys are interested in knowing more about the project please feel free to contact. Have a nice day.

SFOSE: http://www.scienceweeksy.org.uk/
Engineering 360 Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcjNtq6B1yU
SELA: http://www.sela-sheffield.org/

Will Kintish Networking Session - Sheffield International Leadership Academy by Lucas

Frozen before the giant wooden doors that bear the threshold into the jungle of business professionals, your mind goes into overdrive. What awaits you beyond these two wooden barriers? Rejection? Ridicule? Or opportunities?

You can hear the crowds loudly chattering within, but your heart’s thumping overpowers the ambiance.

You prepare to step forward, but a psychological ball and chain weighed your legs onto the luxurious carpets below.

You assure yourself that you’ve prepared for the worst. Your feel your heart beating underneath the tag that says “Hello, my name is…” sweat breaks from your forehead, and you grip your fingers to a tight fist. Taking a gulp, you say to yourself before stepping into the hall, ‘It’s time to do some networking’.

The word “networking”, when presented in any form brings with it an unfathomable aura of terror to every student, why?

According to Will Kintish, renowned professional business networking trainer, it’s all in your head!

“Networking, at its very basic, is simply the act of building relationships with people. The fact is, we’ve been doing it ever since we’re young children”, Will said to 20 of the University’s aspiring engineering undergraduates.

He was hosted by the Sheffield Engineering Leadership Academy (SELA) to speak to its 2016 cohort on the 15th of February at Inox Dine.

Will spent the early parts of his life as an accountant and a trainer for Dale Carnegie training. Since 2000 he has delivered networking and presentation training courses on from his own consultancy. His experience in the field was evident during the session, with a well-rounded approach in the course (including talks, demonstrations and even an interactive cocktail simulation!) and charming charisma, he broke down and delivered an impressionable course on the essentials of business networking.

Being featured in the session was the renowned Kintish Networking Process, an 8-step process that covered stages of preparing of accepting invitations, building relationships and following up with possible clients. Within a mere 3 hour session, Will concisely presented and justified the various strategies around the Kintish Networking Process to successfully approach attendees, unlock new business opportunities and secure clients through networking events.

Being a networking novice myself, many of the advice that he presented were delightfully intriguing. A few of my personal favourites include

“Opportunities will most likely be identified in the early parts of or after the networking event”

“The most interesting topic that a person can talk about is him/herself”

Of course, there were many moments where I instinctively cringed on the many past slip-ups that I’ve had in past networking events.

As the session came to a close, we can be assured that through Will, every SELA student that walked out the conference room door was transformed into more confident and skilled networkers. With the ecstatic news that he may return in the next year, I look forward to having a recap session of this enlightening and superbly delivered course. 

Chemical Engineering: 3 Students: 0

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, 2^nd 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 2^nd 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 1^st 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 2^nd year, all I failed at was my expectation; which in my view is one of the best defeats ever.