University of Sheffield
Engineering You’re Hired is an intensive one-week activity that is compulsory for all 2nd years within the Faculty of Engineering. Students choose their problem and are then placed in multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural teams to work on a conceptual design and a plan for a project to take the design to the “proof of concept stage”.
The competition gives engineers the skills, and evidence of those skills, that will make them a highly employable engineer. It gives students experience of working as a professional engineer would do, facing some of the challenges of the real workplace.
Amongst other elements, the competition covers effective working (eg goal setting to tackle problems that achieve a clearly defined aim), time management to meet deadlines and cope with the fluidity of changing situations, collaborative working and presenting ideas to a range of people including prospective clients.
Positive Feedback
The opportunity for students to work in multi-disciplinary groups is invaluable to their growth and development as engineers and the incentive given by the EIB fund helps them focus and appreciate better the need to maintain a commercial understanding of engineering in context, as well as personally benefiting them for their efforts in participating in this national competition.
Peta Kirk - Academic Lead for 'Engineering You're Hired' - University of Sheffield