Video transcript: "Studying Engineering at UTS"

Dr Rob Jarman, Director of Undergraduate Programs (Engineering): Undoubtedly what’s unique about UTS engineering is our practice based focus and our internship opportunities that we offer our students through the diploma of engineering practice. Students spend two periods of internship in industry honing their skills as graduates.

So we have an Industry Partnering Unit (IPU) and their responsibility is to work with our industry partners and our students to help them gain those industry placements for their Diploma of Engineering Practice, those work experiences, so industry and UTS working together. The best thing that we see coming back from our students after their first internship is a far greater maturity in their approach to their studies. They can see and they know they understand where their theory is being applied in the practice. Our second internship students, are in the most part, almost doing graduate roles, some of them have inspiring project work where they’re supervising projects worth millions of dollars in some cases and are really operating at that graduate level long before they’re actually graduated from their course.

I think industry recognises UTS engineering graduates as work ready, they’ve already had that internship experience, they've got great graduate attribute skills and they’re ready to go straight into placement. In fact many of our students have already secured their graduate employment before they finish their course work.

Nathan Grace, Graduate, Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering Diploma in Engineering Practice: The UTS academics, lecturers and tutors are really good here. I find them so approachable, there’s been so many times where I’ve been pressing to get something done for an assignment or I’m just sort of confused about something and I just walk straight into their offices and most of them are more than happy to help you, so they are always accessible.

A lot of UTS lecturers have actually had experience in the industry for a decent amount of time, many lecturers still work part time in the industry so a lot of the stories they tell are very relevant to what you’re learning and that defiantly adds to the practical aspect of UTS engineering.

David Richards, Graduate, Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering Diploma in Engineering Practice: Towards the end of my degree, I had the opportunity work as part of the robot assist team, and one of the aims of the robot assist team is to build a robot platform that can compete over in Singapore in a robot competition called RoboCup at Home, and for me my roll and contribution in this project was to build and to program a robotic manipulator or a robotic arm to be able to pick up objects that it can see in front of it on the table or on a book shelf or a desk and so I was able to help contribute to the project. I developed this software and then I travelled with the team over to Singapore and we competed in this competition and this is the first year it’s been run so it was exciting to not only to be part of that but also to see this robot platform being built and taking shape right in front of me.

Sonja Caraian, PhD Student, Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering Diploma in Engineering Practice: At UTS there are a lot of opportunities for undergraduates to get involved with research and in my final semester and through the Centre for Autonomous Systems (CAS), I became involved with completing my capstone and my internship there and this research centre gave me a lot of opportunities that I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten working in the industry, to explore the research side of a career I suppose and really get involved with proper research and they really make you an integral part of the team during your time there.

Rob: UTS engineering students have got outstanding international opportunities through our leadership development programs through the combined degree with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies as well as the exchange programs to some of the leading institutions around the world through our partner network. You can also undertake an internship opportunity while your away so if you want to combine studies and travel this is an ideal opportunity.

Elouise Chapman, Bachelor of Engineering in Civil and Environmental Engineering Diploma in Engineering Practice: I did my exchange in America in North Carolina which was amazing, I had so much fun and it gave an opportunity to experience different culture and live there and do my exchange elective over there as well and also gave me an opportunity to travel before hand during and after without having to defer uni.

Rob: World leading facilities for our students in UTS Engineering for example we’ve got a remote laboratory setup now which is got a lot of interests, we are leading Australia in the development of this facility where students from anywhere around the planet can access real equipment, not simulation, through the remote laboratories and undertake experiments from their computer anywhere on the planet.

David: When I came to UTS it was such a difference from a public school I’ve been to, there was so many facilities here, computers, there’s laboratories, there’s lots of expensive equipment that we can play with, even the students, and something it’s quite exciting to not only come to a new place where the environment is so much different from high school but there’s so many exciting cool things to play around with so from robots to expensive computers to laboratory equipment setups. It was a really exciting place and I really enjoyed how that links to all the different subjects that I was involved in and how I can use them as part of completing assignments that I had to do for my various core subjects.