Being a young engineer in today’s world can have its unique challenges, from graduating and finding a job to developing their career.
As one of the youngest senior environmental chartered engineers at AECOM Australia, Radha Rockwood has navigated these challenges and wants to encourage more people to understand there is more to engineering than just hard maths.
Rockwood’s passion for engineering started when she was a senior in high school and heard about environmental engineering.
“The name alone sounded so enigmatic and got me curious to explore more,” she said.
This exploration included digging out career guides, internet searches on what environmental engineers did and calling local universities to discuss course material and careers.
At the time, it was a relatively new degree, but she was adamant that she didn’t want to do more conventional engineering using computer models and punching in numbers.
“I wanted something different. I had a passion for the environment, but I loved problem solving and managing, and I liked being outdoors and seeing things in real life,” she said.
Rockwood graduated from an environmental engineering degree at the end of 2008 and started as a graduate with first class honours at AECOM in early 2009, obtaining her chartered status in May 2013.
Rockwood has a strong belief that environmental engineering is a good place to start for a degree that can take someone down any path due to the combination of chemical and civil engineering, as well as other subjects such as economics and law.
“It’s a well-rounded degree and as a graduate you can choose from multiple career paths. The colleagues I studied with are all doing different things – working in hydrogeology, construction management, financial planning, water treatment plants, policy writing, and risk and asset management, to name a few.”
Her path went down the road of project managing environmental assessments for over $1 billion worth of traffic improvement projects across the Sydney road network.
But Rockwood said the market can come in peaks and troughs that heavily influence job availability for engineers, depending on the infrastructure projects at the time. This can make it tough for young engineers to find jobs when they graduate.
“Young engineers are facing a lot of competition in today’s current market. I think this is common in most industries where there are currently more graduates available than there are job positions, particularly during times of market downturn,” she said.
“The key is for young engineers to make themselves as appealing and employable as they can.”
Rockwood said this can be through finding experience, diversifying their skills and doing further study.
Rockwood asserted that young engineers can be an asset – she said they bring a different perspective to the industry and love being involved in committees on both a social and technical side.
“They bring a fresh attitude and enthusiasm that can sometimes be lacking in old-school engineering workplaces,” she said.
Women in engineering
Despite being one of the youngest senior chartered engineers at AECOM, she has gained considerable experience, such as working on a new highway, expanding a coal mine, upgrading an electrical terminal station and decommissioning a car manufacturing plant.
In particular, working on the Ravensworth North Project, an alliance with Xstrata Coal (now Glencore), AECOM and Downer EDI, stands out for Rockwood.
“On a project level, it was an amazing experience – I managed all civil infrastructure, which was a massive area, from the coal conveyors and preparation plant to road realignments,” she said.
“This project was a positive experience for me personally. It was the first time I moved out of home and lived in a small town, and having the opportunity to explore the Hunter Valley and Newcastle on weekends and making true friendships.”
Apart from the scale of the project and the team of people she worked with, Rockwood said it was priceless looking out of her donga window and seeing dump trucks drive by, and having the chance to see open pit mine blasting.
But in an industry where women made up just 13 per cent of the engineering population in 2015, according to a recent report by Engineers Australia, she has had to overcome challenges.
Rockwood said this challenge can start at university for girls, even in a sector like environmental engineering, where there is a greater gender balance.
“We do common engineering, civil and chemical subjects – it was normal to be the only female in tutorials and labs. It wasn’t a big deal, but one couldn’t help but notice. Even today, working as a professional, I will often be the only female in a meeting,” she said.
“A big challenge was working in construction on the Western Highway Anthonys Cutting Realignment Project, where I had my first encounter with the typical blokey construction supervisors. Being heard and getting things done in the field was a little tricky. It took time to adjust and was definitely a work in progress.”
While this perception can be one reason for girls not undertaking engineering studies, Rockwood said one fallacy that also impacts on this is that engineering is seen as a geeky subject focused purely on maths.
“Depending on what field of engineering you go into, it’s as far from that as you can imagine,” she said.
“Engineering is not everyone’s cup of tea, but the variety of engineering streams offered by universities are all so different, so there’s sure to be something that will appeal to most young budding innovators.”
[Nominations are now open for Engineers Australia's Women in Engineering Gender Diversity Awards. Find out more.]