Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

I help run a team of structural analysts and engineers who ensure that our products are structurally integral, and won't collapse in on themselves.

Aside from the structural analysis side of things (structural checks, mathematics, FEA modelling and CAD drawing), I go out and win business for the team, manage it's workload, liase with our customers and generally plan to ensure everyone keeps their job for the next few years!

Talking to people, communicating at a whole host of different levels - engaging with customers, reporting to superiors, liasing with team members.

The pressure & the responsibility, which manifests itself as time management.

It's varied - it ticks all the boxes for working towards my chartership, both from technical & commercial perspectives, and gives me the opportunity to meet a range of people.

General engineering intuition and experience mostly. The structural calculation skills I gained at university have developed with exposure to wider, more realistic situations.

BAE has a pretty good grad scheme with a number of training courses all graduates attend. There are some engineering specific ones too, but largely you are at liberty to find and justify taking your own opportunities.

Raleigh International, Borneo Team, as a Logistics Co-Ordinator, Trek Leader and Porject Manager. Raleigh are a charity focused on helping develop young people by offering them the opportunity to do things like build schools and install water systems in remote rural villages in developing countries. I worked as a volunteer initially, and then as staff, providing a huge range of services - equipment maintenance and distribution, medical evacuation, team leadership, etc.

Materials Technology - An engineering materials R&D firm who, among other things, provide engineering support to small businesses with new products, perform accelerated weathering testing & qualitative and quantitative analysis of failed components. Due to the small size of the firm, I was involved in all of these activities, and many more.

I want to join the TA, prefereably a REME unit, to gain more physical hands on skills, such as welding, mainly to help my understanding of the design process.
Shipbuilding in the UK won't be around forever. I'm confident that the skills I'm developing will allow me to easily transition to another industry when necessary - if not, I'm tempted to go to sea as an Engineering Officer on the cruise ships!

Learn to market yourself - all of your skills and experiences are valuable to an employer, but they need to know about them!
Also, be flexible - the industry you end up doesn't necessarily have much of an impact on the job you'll end up doing.