UNSW Engineering Work Experience Program

Every year, UNSW offers a selected number of students from various schools to attend the five-day engineering program. Adam H in Year 10 was accepted this year and had an amazing time experiencing all aspects of engineering. Here is Adams reflection of his experience.

I was able to travel the city and explore different construction sites and research labs. The main fields of engineering I got to see during the week were chemical, environmental, geotechnical, mining, and structural engineering, with each day focusing on a different type of engineering.

The first day involved a visit to the Central Park water recycling plant, where I learned all about the processes behind the treatment of sewer water and how it gets processed into water clean enough to be used for things like watering the garden or flushing the toilet. The afternoon was filled with a tour of the UNSW science building and group challenges.

The following day, we visited the UNSW water research lab and saw many scale models of dams and other locations around Australia. We also learned how engineers design structures to reinforce and protect coastlines and other aspects.

We also looked at construction sites, observing the structures behind large city buildings and how they work. We travelled down the south coast to Stanwell Tops, on the Seacliff Bridge. I was able to learn all about the reasons behind why the bridge was built. It was interesting to hear about the process behind the bridge and the techniques used to build it.

The final day was focused on structural engineering and bridges. I spent the entire day working with five other students to build a bridge out of paper straws and masking tape. These bridges needed to be able to support 5kg of weight in the form of a toy truck driving across.

Another added bonus of this program was getting to know what university life would be like. Having to catch the train and light rail every morning, finding your way around the large campus, and making sure you made it to places on time. All of which were challenges at first but eventually became easy.

I would highly recommend this program for any students who are in Year 10 in the coming years, as it helped me get a better understanding of many different fields of engineering.