Posted on 10 February
Why I chose Civil Engineering
I was a full-time student before, and I knew straight away it wasn’t for me. So, I went to an LCB Open Day where they were discussing higher education and I was like, okay, what’s that? I didn’t know I could do that in construction.
I listened to the Civil Engineering talk, and I thought it sounded interesting. It isn’t something we ever heard about at school. The Open Day was on a Thursday, I joined the course on the Friday, and I started on the following Monday. Term had already started so I missed a few of the early weeks, but everyone helped me get up to speed.
Why LCB?
I knew I wanted to work in construction, and the college environment is a lot better than the school environment. It’s a lot more supportive and you have a lot of seasoned professionals teaching you. It’s interesting listening to their stories and hearing where they came from.
The first LCB staff I met were Sarah Sunderland and Vicky Pattison who both came through industry. To meet people who have been there at the start like me and are both women was inspiring. When I first started at JN Bentley I was the only female in my group. I think there was one other in the year above and that was it.
My day-to-day
At college your day starts later than it does on site, my day-to-day on site has changed so much. I started as a site engineer and apprentice, and then as the years have gone by, I’ve done secondments in different areas of the business, which is something our company promotes.
I did a year in design, and then I found myself in planning, which is for all our programmes and projects. Because Bentley’s is a design and build, it’s all the way from concept design, to sign off and to delivering to the client. It’s a mixed bag.
College is different, studying is the focus. You don’t have the same distractions you have on site so it’s a lot easier to focus. It’s all about getting that balance right at degree level with exams, luckily our company are good at giving you the time you need for study leave.
Looking at my future
I’ve already made a move into a different area within civil engineering, supporting the team which I really enjoy. The things I’ve liked the most are structural work and the calculations you need to do alongside that.
I definitely want to work within civil engineering, and it has been helpful to learn on the go. You come up against problems you’re also learning about in the classroom. I’m building the tools to deal with the workload on site, learning transferable skills.
What kind of support have you had at LCB?
On site I actually had an instance where I felt like I wasn’t doing as well as I thought I should. So, I got in contact with my line manager and they set up monthly meetings with me. They kept track of how I was doing, set tasks for me and generally just checked up on me.
LCB made sure there was always a tutor available to me, if you ever need someone at the college you can message them on Teams and they’ll get back to you. You can video call or schedule a meeting if you need a bit more time.
During study weeks it’s super helpful to be able to have someone to speak to. Our tutors are always there to talk us through everything. But LCB and JN Bentley have been so supportive, it’s nice to know someone’s always there.
My advice to the next generation of women in the industry.
I would say joining construction is just the first door into a corridor with lots of other doors. I went into this with a vision of doing one thing and as I’ve gone through my apprenticeship I’ve done loads of different things.
Construction is just one of those industries where you can start somewhere and end up somewhere completely different. There was a time where I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and the next thing you know, I’m on this course and I’m feeling inspired.
A lot of schools tend to push higher education as the only option, and no one really mentions apprenticeships. My course is an apprenticeship as well as being higher education, so it’s the best of both worlds.
Funnily enough, there are new graduates on our site where I’m there showing them the ropes. I think if you feel you struggle academically a little bit, courses like this are the better option because you are supported a lot more.
Emily Hall is a Level 6 Civil Engineering Degree student at LCB (as part of her apprenticeship with JN Bentley)
