Reinaline Morales

How did you become interested in Engineering?

I decided to apply for Engineering whilst at school as I particularly enjoyed Physics and Mathematics. I was very keen to take this forward and applied for Mechanical Engineering at university. I have always thought engineering is a good profession and offers a lot of opportunities.

What did the funding you received make a difference to your studies/to you personally?

When I started university I was not eligible for funding by SAAS and it has been difficult for the first three years of my degree as I had to pay for my fees and work a lot while keeping up with studying. I was browsing through my university’s career website and saw a link to Carnegie Trust’s website and I gave it a read through. I thought of giving it a try since I have been looking for scholarships to apply for previously to help me keep up with my educational and personal expenses whilst studying. The funding has made a huge difference to my studies and personally as the worry of not being able to pay for fees was relieved. As a result, I was able to concentrate on my studies more, helping me to graduate with 1st class honours in Mechanical Engineering.

What have you gone on to do since graduating?

I was initially an MEng student but after finishing 4th year I had the opportunity to be an intern at GE Oil & Gas for 14 months which was a very valuable experience. Throughout that internship I got to contemplate with my career path and received a job offer from the Ministry of Defence with their Graduate Scheme. That is when I decided to graduate with a BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering and not do my MEng year. This Graduate Scheme is accredited by major engineering and scientific institutions such as IoP, IET, IMechE, RaEs, RINA, and IMarEST. The graduate scheme is composed of placements that allows graduates to obtain a great deal of experience of the engineering life cycle of a product.