Hi engineers! I’m glad you’re here and trust me, you’re in the right place!
I know you are probably all here for advice on choosing your specialisation but I should probably introduce myself first. My name is Rohan and I am your Part II blogger for mechanical engineering in 2024! I was born and raised in a small village in southern England, before my family moved here in 2017. I went to high school in Palmerston North and now, I’m here at UoA.
I’m obsessed with long-distance running so don’t be surprised if that’s a recurring theme or if I bring it up at random! The featured image of this blog is none other than Eliud Kipchoge, the greatest marathon runner of all time and a source of inspiration for me.
Now I know a lot of you guys are gonna skim read these blogs (I may have been guilty of that last year 😬) but TRUST ME, these blogs are soooooo helpful……be sure to check out the posts of my fellow bloggers and follow along as we progress through the semester. We are each going to be posting 6 blogs during sem 2, once every fortnight. For my blogs at least, topics that I’ll cover will be why you should (or shouldn’t) choose mechanical engineering, my own experiences with choosing my spec, my courses this year, and also additional insights into life as an engineer, internships etc. There’s probably more but I’m blanking 😶
But anyway, there’s no point rambling, I might as well get straight into it!
Why did I choose mechanical (I didn’t like 115)
You always hear about these people that come out of the womb disassembling and reassembling alarm clocks or computers or whatever……but I promise, this does not have to be you and it certainly wasn’t me either. I was never destined to be a mechanical engineer which made the process of choosing my spec particularly challenging.
Now, like a lot of you, I found 115 to be a little frustrating at times. I really struggled with spatial visualisation early on and Test 1 was a disaster. 115 ended up being my worst grade for the entire year which probably begs the question, “whyyyyyyy did you choose mech.”
Well…I guess the moral of this is don’t let your grades choose your spec for you. If you did come out of the womb building space shuttles, then mechanical has probably always been for you. But for those of you who didn’t, you have to reflect on your experiences with engineering so far and consider what you found enjoyable, not just how well you did on a test or exam. I found the design projects in 115 really enjoyable and in hindsight, I learnt a lot from them.
If it comes to it, process of elimination may be your friend as well, and it certainly was for me! I’ll give you a brief rundown on how I ended up choosing mech.
Straight away, I knew coding wasn’t my favourite…like I didn’t mind it but I knew it wasn’t something that I’d want to be doing my whole life (131 destroyed me). So I could rule out software, compsys and engsci pretty quickly. While William Lee was an absolute legend, logic gates weren’t really my cup of tea so electrical was gone. I knew civil and structural weren’t my thing either..too much statics ngl. I could continue ruling specs out like this until it came down to mechanical/mechatronics and while tron is reeeaaaalllyyy cool, again it was too electrically and softwarey. So that left me with mech…
Is mechanical engineering for you??
This is something I’m hoping to answer in the coming weeks. I’m going to be going into detail in what mechanical engineering actually involves, the courses mech students take in 2nd year and MUCH more. Hopefully, this will give you more of an idea of what is to come. SO PLEASE STAY TUNED, IT WILL BE WORTH IT!!!
For now I can tell you that one thing…don’t stress. Everything will work out fine in the end, choosing your spec is not going to lock in your entire life. Your options are still broad, I promise.
That’s all from me today! Go for a run and I’ll see you in two weeks!
Rohan