Q & A

I am a fifth year student at the moment and am considering engineering as a career. I studied technology for my Junior Cert and enjoyed it immensely, but sadly, it is not yet available at Leaving Cert level. I am, however, taking higher level maths and physics.

Both my physics teacher and my guidance counsellor have mentioned engineering to me as a possible career choice. When I started looking at the engineering sections of colleges' prospectuses, I became very confused by the range of choice that I would have to make prior to filling in a CAO application. What do various branches of engineers do nowadays, and where can I get some clear information about these career roles?

There is a broad range of engineering specialisations on offer today due to the complexity of the products and services that engineers develop in the 21st century. The majority of engineers do not work in isolation - instead they are members of teams that bring different skills and specialisations to bear on complex projects. As a result, many colleges try to offer this specialisation as part of their degree programmes - graduates of these courses can then target particular industry segments. However, by selecting these "focused" courses it seems that the second-level student must make a career choice at an earlier age. This is fine if you have a clear view of what interests you but it can be confusing for students with a general interest in engineering.

The first point to be made is that an engineering degree is very transportable as a professional qualification. Many engineers specialise in particular areas of study but they can still move into other areas of interest when they graduate and gain experience. For example, engineers often become senior managers, using their training as an engineer to manage large organisations or projects.

The important thing for a student moving into third-level education is to select subjects that interest them so they can enjoy their course and graduate with a strong qualification. Four or five years in college is a long time if you do not find it interesting.

On the positive side, by selecting higher level maths and physics, you are keeping your options open for most engineering disciplines. Your difficulty arises because you are unclear of the exact type of engineering that interests you. It is important, therefore, that you do as much research as possible into the career possibilities open to graduate engineers from each specialisation. Engineering broadly divides into sectors such as construction (civil and structural), electrical, electronic and computers, pharmaceutical, biomedical, mechanical, manufacturing and automation or control. Start by considering each of these - select an area of interest and look at the courses available specialising in these areas.

A very good alternative to this approach is to select as broad an engineering degree as possible as your primary degree. It is possible, for example, to take an engineering degree that requires you to focus on a particular discipline after two years on the programme. As a concrete example, students of electrical and electronic engineering in DIT have a common course for the first two years. The students then select from specialised areas in third and fourth year with a choice on offer from electronics, power, control engineering, computers and communications systems. All of the main colleges offer courses that allow the student to delay making a choice in this; details can be obtained from their websites and prospectuses.

There are many sources of information regarding the various engineering disciplines. The website of the Institute of Engineers in Ireland is a good place to start (www.iei.ie/steps). A new site recently launched by the DIT faculty of engineering, called the ENGZone (www.dit.ie/engzone), allows you to post questions to students and graduates.

Brian Mooney is president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors. E-mail questions to bmooney@irish- times.ie