• Question: What type of engineering do you do ? Mechanical?

    Asked by Rebecca to Niamh, Ned, Laurence, Colin, Aisling on 28 Feb 2016.
    • Photo: Ned Dwyer

      Ned Dwyer answered on 28 Feb 2016:

      I trained as an electronic engineer, which involved building electronic circuits. But it also involved writing computer porgrammes to control the electronics. However, after than I worked on writing programmes for controlling big electrical transformers, so often different branches of engineering overlap. When I worked for the European Space Agency, I was mainly writing computer programmes to interpret the photographs and the information coming back from the satellites observing the Earth. So I kinda morphed from being an electronic to a computer engineer….sort of!

    • Photo: Colin Shirran

      Colin Shirran answered on 28 Feb 2016:

      I didn’t train as an engineer with a specific discipline. The courses I took part in always had an option in either mechanical or electronic engineering, and I always took the electronic engineering route. If I hadn’t done my masters in Space engineering I definitely would have done one specifically in Electronic engineering. With that being said, my job now is that of an Electrical Systems engineer so I guess I should call myself an Electronic engineer :).

    • Photo: Aisling Shannon

      Aisling Shannon answered on 29 Feb 2016:

      The course I did was Aeronautical Engineering in UL, which was really only focused on the Aircraft part of Aeronautics, but then through my job, I have gone from Aircraft to Spacecraft… Mechanical Engineering is where I have ended up, although many of my classmates from UL have ended up in totally different areas (from Aircraft Maintenance, through Aircraft Engine Leasing, to Environmental Officer, Journalist, Patent Officer, banking and finance…. so many careers possible).
      The thesis I did for my degree was on Structures Analysis and that has led me through from one job to the next to where I am now.

    • Photo: Laurence O'Rourke

      Laurence O'Rourke answered on 29 Feb 2016:

      I do primarily Operations Engineering which is not really something you learn at University but more on-the-job experience. It’s the engineering involved in ensuring that a spacecraft arriving in space is well taken care of and does everything you want it to do. My background is Physics & Maths and then I did Microelectronics Engineering – but my job now is far from that to be honest.

Comments