What's your job about?
Stantec is a consulting firm that comes up with designs and solutions for a range of clients and across a lot of industries, I work in the civil team doing engineering design in water, stormwater and wastewater sectors.
What my day looks like changes every week, but normally involves designing pipe routes through busy cities, working with different software to understand how flows will travel through the pipe and channel networks, and lots of communication with other water/civil engineers, transport engineers, architects and planners, depending on what project is on the go.
What's your background?
I come from a small town called the Thames, also known as “The Gateway to the Coromandel” which was a pretty cool spot growing up. From a young age, I knew how important clean water was, I grew up swimming in clear rivers and on beautiful beaches and want to preserve and improve them was an idea that I fostered as I went through high school. At the end of high school, I had to work out the best way to make my idea a reality and decided engineering seemed like a good way to help the environment so I’d give it a go.
The first couple of years of uni was a shock to the system, moving from a small town up to the big smoke, and having to work a lot harder to keep up with my classes along with meeting lots of new people, but I kept working at it, and as the classes started to align with my interests it all got a bit easier.
As I was starting to settle in, I completed my first internship at a company that was known as MWH Global (and is now Stantec) – I really enjoyed my summer with them and was a good fit for the team so started as a graduate after my final year of uni, and I’ve been there since (3yrs so far).
Could someone with a different background do your job?
100% Yes, engineering is all about problem-solving, and the more varied perspectives and backgrounds you can have in a project team, the more creative and clever solutions can be generated.
Some core skills that can come in handy, are clear communication, you need to be able to ask questions and share ideas, along with a keenness to solve problems and help communities.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
I love the fact I can actually help create positive solutions for communities and the environment. In reality that looks like designing things like big storage tanks to reduce the amount of wastewater that ends up in waterways or looking to find different water supplies for cities and towns to make sure there is enough drinking water for everyone.
What are the limitations of your job?
The job can get very busy! To make sure project designs are delivered on time so construction can start, it can end up with some long days at the end of the project.
It's also not a job to take lightly, what you design will directly influence communities and any mistakes can cost a lot of money. BUT your team will support you along the way to make sure you are taking on the responsibility at a rate that keeps you and others safe.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...
My most key piece of advice is, to make sure you are doing something because you want to do it, not because you feel like you should. Your attitude to a challenge really does have an impact on the outcome so if you are jumping into an opportunity, really commit to it and get all you can out of the experience.