University: The University of Western Australia

Postgraduate Degree: Master of Professional Engineering (Civil Engineering)

Undergraduate Degree: Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Commerce, Engineering Science (Civil Engineering) and Accounting

School Subjects: Mathematics Methods, Physics, Engineering Studies, Accounting and Finance, Economics, English

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When deciding on which Engineering major to pursue, what I found worked best was to ask the people around me and to do independent research. I highly recommend reaching out to people who have either done the course and/or are working in the industry to have a discussion with them, to see whether their studied major aligns well with your interests.

For me, I was tossing it up between Civil or Mechanical Engineering. Civil Engineering particularly stuck out to me as I realised it was the broadest Engineering major. With this major you can work as a civil engineer, structural engineer, mining engineer (at some firms), geotechnical engineer, tailings engineer, project engineer and many more speciality fields.

Accounting

Firstly, I’ll just touch on my experience with Accounting, as it is one of the most popular Commerce majors. I found Accounting and Finance ATAR fairly straightforward, as it just ‘clicked’ with me, which was good because I feel that Accounting at uni is just an extension of what you learn in school. There are lots of moments where you’ll do Accounting at uni and think, “Oh yeah, I’ve done that before. Now I just have to do it slightly differently.”

As you can guess, there are calculations in Accounting, but nothing complicated like Engineering. Rearranging equations is as complicated as it gets, but if you didn’t do Accounting and Finance ATAR or Methods ATAR, then it may be a bit challenging for you. Some calculations do take a bit of time to wrap your head around, but it’ll click with a bit of practice. It’s not like Engineering, where they can throw a question you have never seen before— all Accounting questions are pretty similar each time.

Despite enjoying it, I actually wouldn’t recommend getting an Accounting degree unless you want to be an accountant. Completing the three-year Bachelor’s course is accredited with Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) and CPA Australia. I would do Finance or something that can be used more to run a business. Accounting is only useful if you want to become one, as even after doing Accounting, it still didn’t help me much with day-to-day tasks (like doing my taxes).

Change in Engineering Degree Structure

An important point to note is that I’m currently doing the Master of Professional Engineering postgraduate degree, having previously graduated with a degree in Engineering Science. All up, this is a 5 year course. However, UWA has changed it to Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) which is a 4 year course where the 4^th year is a honours/research year.

Content

Civil Engineering units involves a lot of maths so be prepared for that. I only did Methods ATAR so I completed the Specialist bridging unit (Mathematics Foundations: Specialist – MATH1722). I believe this bridging unit is perfect as it covers just what you need to know from Specialist (although completing Specialist ATAR may mentally prepare you more for the maths that is to come). Civil Engineering is more maths/physics heavy than some other Engineering majors like mining or software. However, it is less maths/physics heavy than others, specifically mechanical and electrical.

A typical week studying Engineering involves a lot of lectures (usually 3-6 hours/week of lectures per unit for your 4 chosen units for the semester), a practical/tutorial where you go over questions (usually 1-2 hours/week per unit) and some sort of lab that will only run on chosen weeks for 2-3 hours/week. General study advice differs from person to person, but for me, I find that going to uni almost every day to keep on top of all the work is essential. I don’t like to fall behind and in uni, as it is much faster paced than school, it is important to keep on top of all the lectures and questions.

A lot of people preach that uni is way easier than school and that you do almost no work, and while this does apply to some degrees like Commerce (I did a double degree with Commerce for undergrad), it certainly does not apply to Engineering. You will be busy and have many classes, lectures and practicals to attend as well as constant quizzes, assignments and general assessments to stay on top of. For me, it required many hours and being physically at uni almost every day to achieve decent results. Despite you only needing to pass units to get your degree, getting placement hours is a graduation requirement for engineering, so having a sound GPA/WAM is crucial when applying for not just vacation/internship roles, but graduate ones as well.

Theory vs Practical Content/Internships

Although a dogma you may here about Engineering is that UWA is more theory heavy whereas Curtin leans more towards practical work, I don’t really understand this notion. UWA does involve a lot of theory, but as UWA supplements this theory work with labs I find that UWA does offer practical work. I’m not sure if Curtin offers something similar or more that makes it seems more practical but at the end of the day, I think almost everything you will learn in labs at university will never be used outside of those classes.

The most practical experience you can get for Engineering is through internships/vacation programs. I recommend getting into them as early as possible so you can see what Engineering is really like as it is very different to the work you do in uni.

Sourcing internships can be difficult but it really depends on the field you are trying to get into. I have done two vacation programs; one was for a local civil engineering consulting firm and another for a mining firm as a geotechnical engineer. Despite there being lots of opportunities, internships are definitely not easy to get into as you have almost everyone applying for them so there is a lot of competition. I recommend to start applying early, I started in my 3^rd year, however with my Masters I have a 5 year degree. For most people on the newer 4 year honours course, they will apply for internships at the beginning of 2^nd year to try get in for the following summer.

If you keep applying, you will eventually get one but make sure your resume is nice and tidy. Make sure you have some work experience to throw in there and some good school/uni results to go along with it as that’s what will get you into the interview stage. When in the interview stage, make sure you have one your research on the firm to answer any questions they may ask and ask the interviewer insightful questions about the firm to show a keen interest.

Advice for Future Engineering Students

I would advise students who are considering Civil Engineering is to first do research on what civil engineering actually is and what it involves. A lot of people like to say Civil Engineering is the ‘easy’ engineering major and I assure you that it is far from that. There are significantly easier Engineering majors to choose from, and Civil Engineering covers a very wide range of aspects in the Engineering field given it has so many pathways to follow.

Another thing is to make sure Engineering is really what you want to do and that you are prepared for the workload. There is a reason why Engineering has one of the highest dropout rates of any degree and that’s because the ATAR prerequisite is not difficult to achieve, but the workload itself can surprise people. Most people I know who dropped out did so after their 2^nd year when they encountered a few more difficult units, specifically math ones.