Amazing Career Journeys
Profile
Peter Drennan
Hardware Engineer
Bio
With his Dad being a pilot, Peter grew up dreaming of flying. At school he enjoyed science and maths, but preferred arts, including filmmaking and drama.
It made it difficult to decide what to do. After engineering at uni, he was attracted to working for the defence industry and a career as an electrical engineer with BAE Systems meant he could enjoy working with electronics and flight simulators.
Questions
Questions & Answers
- What is the best aspect about your work?
- Problem solving is the part of my job I get satisfaction from – especially if the problem is technical. Plus getting to work within a team of great people makes the job more satisfying and fun.
- What is the most challenging aspect about your work?
- Most of my work is technical in nature so I’m regularly confronted with some challenging technical problems – thankfully I have lots of clever people around me who can help me if I ever get stuck. Because the systems I primarily work on are very complicated and interconnected it can be a challenge to make sure you understand the system not just at an overall system level point of view, but also how each sub-system works and how they relate to each other. This is especially important when you propose a change or upgrade to the system – you need to understand all the dependencies and flow on effects from that change to make sure you don’t break the rest of the system! Like I said, this challenge is really what keeps me entertained at work.
- What high school and/or Uni/TAFE did you go to?
- I went to Concordia College for high school in Highgate. After that I went to UniSA.
- What did you study in further education?
- I did a double degree which included a Bachelor of Electrical and Mechatronic Engineering, and a Bachelor of Commerce.
- What is the best career advice you can give to someone is interested in going down a similar path
- Make sure you take your studies seriously, but don’t let that stop you from having a life outside Uni as well. This could include time you spend in part-time work, travelling, studying overseas for part of your degree, learning another language, or volunteering. You’d be amazed at what you can learn about yourself by doing manual labour in a factory, or at a café as a waiter or a kitchenhand. Don’t graduate from Uni with just a degree – graduate with life experience, perspective and a story. Not only will you be more fulfilled and mature as a person, but that extra life experience will really give you a step up in the professional workplace after Uni by making you a better communicator and team player. Being an Engineer is not just about solving technical problems – it is really about working in a team and communicating your ideas to other people.
