When it comes to university, there’s no traditional route for study. With various routes available, study has not only increased in accessibility but flexibility.

Robbie enrolled in part-time study of BEng Mechanical Engineering in 2016 which saw him study through night classes at RGU alongside his full-time employment. He shares his journey from study through to his role now with OneSubsea.

What attracted you to a career in Mechanical Engineering?

Growing up in Aberdeen, the energy industry obviously has a huge presence here and being such a massive industry, I thought it wouldn’t be short of careers.

The majority of my friends from school went straight to university but I didn’t see myself doing the same. I went and got a job and just cracked on from there until I figured out what I wanted to do next.

I had my eyes on an engineering role but felt my grades from secondary school, didn’t reflect my capabilities. So I decided to get some extra qualifications under my belt and started working towards that goal.

I started working in retail and went on to study a HNC at NESCol which then rolled onto an HND before coming to RGU to get my degree. It felt like a long slog at the time, but it was totally worth it.

About six months into my night classes, I landed by first job with a subsea engineering company. I worked within its design office and from there I worked my way through until I got my qualification.

How did you find the balance of night classes and full-time employment?

I’m not going to lie, it was a bit of a struggle at first. When I started at college it was all so new, a novelty almost – so it took me a while to find my bearings and get focused. By the time I came to RGU, I had a few years of study under my belt, a routine and lessons learned.

My wife had our first child during my studies, so that of course brought on its own set of priorities to juggle but luckily I had the tools in place to keep things manageable.

There’s always going to be pressure points in life and I find that things normally all come at once, but both good routine and boundaries definitely helps keep you on track.

Things will feel manic at the time, but the storm soon passes.

Tell us about your role at OneSubsea

I joined OneSubsea in 2020 as an Intervention Engineer – a design and engineering role. When I started, my role was focused on the generation of engineering documentation and calculations for the manufacturing of components for subsea projects. That would see me go through the full build and test process.

More recently my role has evolved to have more of a crossover with tendering. Now at the front end of projects, I’m involved in the bidding process to win the work. It’s been a learning curve but a really interesting part of the business to work in.

Before I would be focused solely on the engineering tasks to execute client projects, but now I am more involved in the concept development. My role in tendering covers a range of tasks, where I use my engineering experience to generate accurate technical work scopes.

Working on both sides of the process has been great in getting that start to finish perspective of our work.

What’s a bit of advice you can share with students and alumni making those starting career steps?

For those studying, just stick in and take the guidance from your lecturers and support from fellow students. It’s a pretty great learning environment at RGU.

I’m a huge believer in absorbing all the information you can. Be a sponge and take in opportunities to broaden your knowledge and experience. Whether that’s internal or external to study or work, it all plays a huge part.

My advice to graduates is that the learning never stops. You never know how your role or industry is going to evolve and it can be daunting stepping into a new environment so take the time to ask questions so you can keep learning. You want to be able to take on change, not run away from it. Be ahead of the game and jump both feet in.

In a more general context, always be open to share your knowledge and give back. Your insight could be so valuable to a student or colleague and whether its mentoring or a quick answering of a question, it goes a long way. It’s always good to help and you just never know the impact you could make.

That’s a big reason why I wanted to get involved in the career networking event at RGU.

And in terms of your industry, what career opportunities are there?

There’s lots of different career paths within the energy sector. In my case, working with a big service provider gives a huge scope of opportunities and paths but there’s opportunities in any size of business – you just need to keep your eye out.

Sustainability is of course at the forefront of my sector and energy transition holds massive opportunities for careers. People are growing more and more aware of their impact on the environment and where the assumption may be that the energy sector isn’t the most sustainable, changes are happening for the better.

Great careers await in the industry, and they’ll be here for years to come – the energy sector isn’t going away anytime soon.

Find out more

Robbie shares more of his insights at our career development event with RGU Careers and Employability. If you would like a recording of our first career networking event, request a copy: