I’m Thomas and I studied a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil and Infrastructure) with Honours at RMIT University.
I moved down to RMIT in Melbourne from Wagga in NSW. For the last couple of years my independence has definitely increased and despite it being such a huge student population, there’s still very much the community aspect of RMIT. Whether that’s through your classes, through your clubs that you may join, through your friendship groups. It’s still very much a feeling of belonging.
During school I was very sort of interested in the sciences and maths and I’ve always been a tinkerer at heart, pulling things apart and putting them back together, understanding how they work. So, for me civil engineering was the logical step.
Being on campus, some of the best spots I found were in Building 80. You’ve got outlooks over the city, Melbourne is very easily accessible, as is the city campus. Public transport and some of the things that I’ve become very accustomed to include, you know, coffee at the local café and a chocolate croissant or a banh mi at the local Vietnamese place. That’s something that I had never experienced before I got down to Melbourne.
One of my highlights was a steel class where we designed throughout the semester an I-beam varying a few of the different properties and dimensions of the I-beam before going out to the Bundoora campus and testing the beam and seeing if the load that it failed at was actually concurrent with our calculations, which I found to be a very hands on, real world application of what we were learning.
I found the civil engineering course and associated clubs, CESA, being the Civil Engineering Students Association, to be very valuable in providing industry events. Regularly we would receive emails about job opportunities or networking opportunities. Currently I’m working for a company out on North East Link, one of the big tunnel projects in Melbourne as an undergraduate engineer and I’ve been offered a graduate engineering role there, which I will commence after I graduate. Some of the RMIT support services on offer that I used include RMIT Career Centre, which is where I found my current job advertised. I found a lot of civil engineering professors to be very dedicated to their students, always there to answer questions whether it’s after class or later in the evening as assignments are due.
I’m very much looking forward to graduation day, with the graduation parade around the city campus in the morning. I’ve got family coming down from Wagga up in NSW to celebrate with me, so my mum, my dad, my aunty and uncle are going to come down. My partner’s going to come as well, so we will go out and celebrate after.
The main thing I’ve learned in my four years at RMIT is the importance of rounding out your education. Not just having good grades but getting amongst student clubs and getting an internship and using those industry connection has. In 10 years’ time I hope to be working on some major projects. With an RMIT Civil Engineering degree, I’m certain that it’ll hold me in good stead if I want to pursue engineering opportunities overseas or around Australia. It’s a very well recognised degree and I think the skills that I’ve gotten at RMIT and the skills I hope to gain in the workforce will hold me in good stead to achieve those things in 10 years’ time.
