Megan Doyle

"I always enjoyed maths and physics at school, I found calculating the answer or solution to a question really rewarding. I also like to be creative and think outside the box - coming up with new ideas and different ways of doing things. I think these are really important personality traits which you don't always think of when you think of engineering, traditionally engineering is seen as physically building or fixing something, but in reality it's so much more than that. Being able to work with diverse groups of people is really important, sometimes you might be talking to an expert in a particular subject and you need to work out the important information to pass on to non-technical people in a project so communication is so important. "

"I work for a consultancy company which means we work with lots of different companies in a huge range of projects. Recently I've been working with a company looking at when some equipment has failed. This means looking at photos of the damage, talking to experts and trying to work out what happened. I then write my findings in a report and a decision is made about what follow up actions need to be made. On other projects, I've worked with other engineers and the end users (the people who use the product) to write the requirements about what the product needs to do - this sounds straightforward but it really isn't as there's so much to think about! My job is really varied which I really enjoy, I spend a lot of time talking to different people but also spend time writing up reports and working by myself so I get the best of both worlds. The starting salary for an engineer is around £27000 as a graduate but there are apprenticeships available as well. "

"My degree was in electrical and mechanical engineering and I had really enjoyed this mix of engineering - I knew when I finished my degree that I didn't want to stick with one part of engineering as I had enjoyed lots of different parts of my degree. As part of my degree I had had a year in industry which I would recommend to anyone, my friend once described it as \"a taster of real life\" which is exactly what it was! I worked for a company for a year and got to try out lots of different types of work so when it came to looking for jobs after graduating, I had a much better idea about what I enjoyed and what I wanted to look for in a job. I've been with Atkins since graduating, I really liked the idea of a consultancy and being able to move around onto different projects. I've been able to get really varied experience and have built up my knowledge to get to my current role."

"I really enjoy being creative and as well as maths and physics, one of the subjects I enjoyed most in school was textiles. I started sewing when I was about 13 and loved it, I most enjoy making clothes and even made my own prom dress! I never realized it at the time, but there are similarities between sewing and engineering - you usually have a set pattern with markings on your pattern pieces and you follow instructions to make something completely new. I still enjoy sewing and textiles now, I make quite a few of my own clothes or alter clothes I have. In the last few months I've also been teaching myself how to draw new patterns which is really interesting and a chance to really think outside the box!"

"My work is really dependent on the project I'm working on but I spend quite a bit of time in meetings talking about how the project is progressing or a new part of the project which we need to discuss. Outside of meetings I spend a lot of time at my computer, I'm often working on a report which means writing, researching and talking to other engineers about different parts of the report. I get a lot of information from e-mails as well so I spend time reading through my e-mails and finding the important bits of information to include in my report. It's important that the reports provide enough information and answers the question of the task so I'll sometimes leave a report for a day and come back to it the next day to make sure it makes sense. My days are usually varied depending on which part of the project we're currently working on, sometimes I'll be in a workshop with lots of other engineers and specialists and other days I'm working by myself reading reports and information."

"After my GCSEs, I completed my A-levels at school - I did maths, further maths, physics and history. These were all subjects I had enjoyed at GCSE so it made sense for me to carry these on at A-level. When it came to thinking about what to do after school I looked at apprenticeships and university. When I was looking, there weren't many apprenticeship options available and they didn't really match what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to go into engineering but I hadn't decided on which type of engineering to do. I decided to apply for courses which were a bit more general so I could specialise in a type of engineering later on, or courses that covered more than one type of engineering. I'm really glad I did this as it kept my options open!"