Anushki Wickramasinghe
- Subject area
- Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering
When looking for universities back in sixth form, like most others, my main aim was to achieve a good degree from a reputed university, which has strong links to industry. Not only did º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ provide all of that for me, but also it provided me with a variety of extra-curricular activities and a once in a lifetime overall university experience.
The lecturers are leading experts in their field, and have strong ties to industry, which I found so beneficial for a practical degree, especially when most students have little or no prior industry experience. The STEMLab offers excellent facilities with high spec equipment and top of the range software packages, enabling students to experience working with material similar or equivalent to industry. Each lecturer has their own approach to delivering material, which I found useful, as it meant that as a student you learnt to adapt to different approaches and could later transfer these adaptive skills to industry. I found the academics extremely approachable and willing to help from the first day and beyond. In the first year of your degree you are assigned a personal tutor, this is a great benefit to students to have that extra support outside their normal module lecturers.
I now work as a RF/Antenna Engineer in the defence sector. My time at º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ inspired me to not only work within the sector I do and carry out the job I do, but also on a larger scale taught me that hard work is very rewarding. It has helped build the work ethic I now carry to my workplace and pushed me to achieve my best. My degree was particularly useful as I was exposed to RF/Antenna engineering from pretty much the first year of my degree. The gradual building of knowledge and practical skills over the years helped me leave university with various transferable skills to take into industry.
My greatest career achievement to date is being able to direct and drive my own project from the initial stages of a product lifecycle to now, its prototyping stage. I hope to begin testing of the prototype antenna I have designed prior to manufacturing it on a larger scale. This has given me an opportunity to not only experience the product lifecycle in full but to also use transferable skills from my degree at university, during various stages of the cycle.
In terms of my achievements at university, being awarded 97% in my final project, which is the highest dissertation mark Wolfson School has seen is something I will carry with me for a long time. Alongside this, winning one of the most prestigious prizes from the University: The Sir Robert Martin Prize has shown me that I need to believe in myself a lot more and that I am capable and deserving of my achievements so far.
To anyone considering studying Electronic and Electrical Engineering, I would say DO IT! The course is a lot of hard work; be prepared for the long days in the labs but ultimately a degree from renowned university such as º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ is worth it, and you won’t regret it!