STEM Untapped

Sharon Strugnell - Civil Engineer

February 10, 2022 STEM Untapped Episode 2
STEM Untapped
Sharon Strugnell - Civil Engineer
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode the students are going to introduce you to Sharon Strugnell. Sharon is a Civil Engineer based in South Yorkshire who has always been curious about how things work. Learning that civil engineers shape the world we live in, Sharon was hooked on the idea that she could make a difference!

Sharon recommends...
Institute of Civil Engineers Website
Megastructures television show
Big, Bigger, Biggest television show
Richard Hammond's Big! television show
New Civil Engineer's Podcast

If you know a school or group of students who would like to interview female role models, please get in touch by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Likewise, if you know anyone who would be a great role model, let us know by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

If you know a group of students who would like to interview one of our role models, please get in touch by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Likewise, if you know anyone who would be a great role model, let us know by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Follow us on Instagram @STEMUntapped
Connect with us on LinkedIn @STEMUntappedCIC
Check out our website

Intro 00:00

Hello, and welcome to the Stem Untapped Podcast series. We're delighted that you could join us. Research from Microsoft reveals that having a role model was one of the most effective ways to prevent girls falling out of love with STEM subjects. As all partners at Untapped are female scientists, and many of our clients and associates are female scientists, we felt that we had a unique opportunity to map students with a variety of role models of their choice. This way, students can ask the questions that are most important to them, allowing them to gain access into a diverse array of different STEM careers.  In this podcast, we've got Sharon Strugnell. Sharon's, a civil engineer, based in South Yorkshire and she's always been curious about how things work. Learning that civil engineers shapes the world we live in, Sharon was hooked on the idea that she could make a difference. Enjoy the podcast.

 

Sharon Strugnell 01:03

Hi, my name is Sharon and I'm a civil engineer. I'm based in Doncaster in South Yorkshire. I work for an organisation that works globally. And I lead a team within the Underground Structures sector. We deliver mining and tunnelling projects across the globe. And I really, really love my job.

 

Student Interviewers 01:21

I'm studying Chinese English, Math, Physics, Geography and Art. And I want to be an architect when I grow up. So that's why we chose Sharon because she is like in a similar profession, engineering. And if I want to be an architect, when I grow up, I think I'll have to work with a lot of engineers,

 

Sharon Strugnell 01:40

You will. 

 

Student Interviewers 01:41

And I'm studying Geography, Business, Physics, Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Latin and Spanish, in GCSEs. And I would like to speak to Sharon, to help me decide as to whether I do want to be an engineer when I grow up.

 

Student Interviewers 01:59

When did you realise being an engineer was your passion?

 

Sharon Strugnell 02:02

So I probably took a very similar route to yourself, I thought I wanted to be an architect. And one of our family friends at the time was a civil engineer. And he was asking me why I wanted to be an architect. And I said you know, just, I love knowing how things work in the built environment around me. And you know, you see these big skyscrapers, and I'd love to be involved in the design and the construction of them. And he actually said, “Have you come across civil engineering?” And I said, No, I don't know what civil engineering is. You know, architecture is, you know, it's a popular topic. So I went away, I did a bit of a Google search on civil engineering. And the more I read up on the subject, I was like, wow, that's exactly what I want to do. I'm not artistic like, what an architect needs to be I'm definitely more mathematical and science minded, and wanting to understand a little bit more about how things work and come together. That was during my, probably like, Year 9. When I was at school, Year 9 was the time that you then chose that you narrowed your subjects down, and then that helped me then shape what subjects I then chose at GCSE, and then obviously, then went on to A Level. If you're going to consider an occupation in engineering, when you are able to, to get some experience through work placements, they're a really good idea. Also, the benefits of joining a larger company. So for example, the business that I work for are, they are an international business. And because they are as big as they are, they work in a lot of different sectors, which means there is an opportunity that you can do a placement within the various sectors of the business, which gives you an immense opportunity to kind of gather that experience and then make a judgement as to where your strengths lie. Which if you join, maybe a smaller business you might not get that access to. There is advantages of joining a smaller business, don't get me wrong, but I think when it comes to getting a feel for well, actually, where does my real interest and passion lie? And where are my strengths? In joining big companies, they tend to have lots of different divisions, which means you can kind of do a rotation around the business. But I sometimes think just the work experience, that's why I joined the business that I did, when I did. You know, when I was at university, I wanted to get that hands on experience whilst learning. And the advantage of that was that at the end, when I recognised that's what I wanted to do, they offered me a job. And here I am, however, many years later still working for them. If you're not careful when you come out of university or go get a job, then you might fall into a certain category. And that might actually not be what you want to do. And I think I've been lucky in it’s been what's been the best for me. However, you might find that for example, in civil engineering, you could be a structural engineer, you could be a highways engineer, you could be a tunnelling engineer, you know, there's so many strands that you could go down. I guess if you came out of university and you weren't quite sure which strand you wanted to go down, you could end up in a role where you're not 100% that’s what's right for you. In any engineering qualification just coming out, and maybe just understanding that it's a very broad discipline. And just being mindful that, you know, it might be better to go and get a little bit of experience in each of the individual sectors, and then make a decision on what you think is your strength and what's your passion. One of the biggest things for me, one of the biggest draws into the, into the industry was, you know, you're looking at this amazing infrastructure around you and like, how cool would it be to say you've been involved in that, whereas some people might look at it a little bit differently and think well actually no, I'd rather be involved in it because of this, this, this and the and the sustainability aspect of it. And that might then drive them down a career in another part of civil engineering. So I think it's just understanding that, and appreciating that, in any engineering qualification that you go and obtain, recognising that actually, at the end of that qualification, there's probably lots of different routes, you can go down and making sure you really are, that's the definitely the best route for you. But in order to do that, get a little bit of experience in each of them.

 

Student Interviewers 05:58

What is the most challenging part about your job? 

 

Sharon Strugnell 06:01

I wouldn't say it's challenging. But what's quite exciting about my job is the fact that every project that I get involved in is different. So it takes us back to first principles every time. We don't do repetitive schemes. You know, you look around towns and cities, and you see buildings, and you see infrastructure, and every piece of infrastructure and building is designed very differently for different external factors. And it just means that every project that we then pick up, you're going back to basics, and starting again and you and that's a challenge in some respects, because no two projects are the same. But that's what makes the job so fun. That one day I could be working on a London Underground station designing tunnels. And then the next day, I could be working on a goldmine over in South America.

 

Student Interviewers 06:44

So is that also the most exciting part of your job?

 

Sharon Strugnell 06:47

The diverse range of projects is probably the most exciting part of my job. Yeah, I think the fact that we get involved in, what we tend to phrase as cradle to grave, you know, we get involved at the very start of a project, when a client's really thinking about what it is that they want to do, we get to see that project all the way through conception through detailed design, and then we get to see it into execution. So that's the exciting bit when you've sat there at the client meeting, early doors, had that discussion. And then after a period of time, and depending on the scale of the project, that will differ. And at the end, then seeing the piece of infrastructure in place on site. That's a pretty awesome feeling. I live in the north of the UK, but a lot of the projects I've worked on have been in London. And whenever anybody's in London, or when I'm in London with people I’m like “I worked on that, I designed that” and that's a really cool place to be. 

 

Student Interviewers 07:40

What made you want to be a woman in STEM? 

 

Sharon Strugnell 07:42

It’s a funny question that one because I never really saw it as being a blocker. I never saw it as me being a female in that industry. I just saw it as me being an engineer. That's what I wanted to do. So that's what I went off and did. And I think I do appreciate the fact that maybe engineering doesn't have the representation on a female to male split that it probably should have. But you know, I've always been treated very much the same as anybody else in my team. I lead a team of engineers that are all male, there is no other females in my team. So I can definitely see the fact that there is there's not as many females as males in our industry. But it's never stopped me being able to progress in my career. It's never stopped me on being able to progress on projects. There's been a few instances in my career where being a female has kind of thrown people. One example being… I was on a site, a mining site down in the Midlands, and before you go underground is quite strict health and safety. So they frisk you to check you've got no contraband. And the gentleman that went to frisk me didn't know what to do, because he never had to frisk a female before. He just he just didn't know what to do. And he said, “Oh, do you mind just checking your pockets and just show me that you've got nothing?” Things like that, that you come across. They're very rare, very rare. In my current role, I'm not saying I've stepped away from engineering a little bit, but rather than being involved in the in the actual technical delivery part, I lead teams of people. And like I said before, a lot of the teams that I'm leading are male, and it's just it's never been a problem. It's never stopped me be able to progress. So I've been very, very fortunate, I think, not to say that's the case for everybody, but definitely in my industry. I've never found it a problem.

 

Student Interviewers 09:19

Is it the job for passion or is it for money?

 

Sharon Strugnell 09:22

Passion. Engineers are in demand. You know, there's a lot of infrastructure projects out there. I work underground. A lot of my projects are tunnelling projects. And you know, there's a cry for geotechnical engineers, there probably is a bit of a salary aspect at the moment. You know, people can afford to ask for more money because it has that demand. But for me, it's always been about just enjoying the job I do. I mean, it says it all I've been in the same team since I finished uni. So 14 years and you know, it's always been about the fact that I love what I do. I love the team that I work with. I love the projects we get involved in and I love the day to day job. Every day is different.

 

Student Interviewers 09:55

Do you think professional people like engineers and architects will be in high demand in the future?

 

Sharon Strugnell 10:00

How the industry is going, I think the drive for Net Zero engineers will have a massive impact on that. And I think engineers will positively impact climate change. So I definitely think there's a demand out there. One of my colleagues actually was involved in writing a paper a couple years ago, it was all about automation and how certain jobs can go into automation. Like can we rely upon IT to carry out that person's role? And I think with engineering, like I said, before, every project we get involved in has got so many external factors. Yes, we can use IT, and we can use programmes to help us visualise things and understand things a little bit better. But they will always have to be human interaction, and that engineering input from humans. There'll be a high demand for engineers in the future.

 

Student Interviewers 10:44

Have you travelled internationally with your job?

 

Sharon Strugnell 10:46

The team that I work for work on tunnels and underground infrastructure. Now, if you think about what civil engineering actually is, when they first read into civil engineering, they'll read about roads, the read about highways, schools, hospitals, you know, the Shard in London, that is all immense examples of civil engineering. But there's a lot of work that goes on underground. And it's probably not as popular. But I work on a lot of mining projects. And you might know this, but there's not a lot of mining that goes on in the UK anymore. So a lot of the mining projects we get involved in take us all across the globe. And similarly with the tunnels. We've got Crossrail down in London, which is a huge project. But there's a lot of tunneling projects going on in other parts of the world like Australia that my team get to get involved in. So it's a great profession to be in to be able to travel internationally. Yes, definitely.

 

Student Interviewers 11:35

Since engineering is your main profession, do you have any time for other jobs or passions of yours?

 

Sharon Strugnell 11:44

No, I mean, as part of my job just because of the path that I've taken, because I have taken more of a leadership and management role within my career, it has meant that I do do a lot more people management. So I would say, in my 14 year career, I've been involved in the technical part, when it comes to design and calculations. I've been involved in Project Management, where it's more project focused, and it's all about delivery. And now I've taken a step into more people management. So I'm quite lucky that I've had a nice mixture. But because of that, I can kind of tap into each one of them, depending on how the week goes, you know. There will be some weeks, like this morning or yesterday, sorry, I was writing a report all day on a project. But today, it's been all about people management, you know, every day is a bit different. So as much as my profession is, and I would say to people, I'm a civil engineer, you could argue that a portion of my profession is actually more about people management and project delivery and project management.

 

Student Interviewers 12:33

How long did you spend to study in university?

 

Sharon Strugnell 12:36

So I did four years. I did a master's degree or an MEng, Master's in Engineering at Coventry. And then since leaving university, I then got Chartered, which is something that you do alongside your professional day to day work. And then as part of just your mind, general, if you go into any professional discipline, you'll tend to find there'll be in accreditation with a certain institution. And as part of the institution that I'm linked to, which is the ICE, there is a requirement to do continual professional development. So we're always training. So as much as we trained to do our engineering qualification, there was then the chartership. And just recently, I finished a qualification in project management. So we're always learning. It's not like you finished university and that’s your career then. There is a lot of opportunities to go off and you know, become a specialist in something. Like I said, mine’s fallen more into the management side. But if you were really interested in a certain part, you know, you can go and get additional training and additional qualifications in that.

 

Student Interviewers 13:32

Did you, studying subjects for being an engineer in high school, university, or even working now? Did you ever doubt yourself on your capabilities? Or just things like that? Did you have any self doubt? 

 

Sharon Strugnell 13:48

Yeah, I think to some extent, I probably still suffer a little bit with something called impostor syndrome. You know, sometimes it almost feels a little bit too good to be true. When I was at school, I was, when I say a high achiever, I don't mean that in a big headed way. But, you know, I always did well in my subjects. And I really enjoyed doing what I did. You know, I enjoyed math, I enjoyed science. So it was never really a problem then. And then I went to university, and again, I achieved good grades. And then when you kind of step into the real world, and you know, you're with like minded people, and you do doubt yourself sometimes, and I think that's really normal. And some days, I have to pinch myself when I think oh, you know, do I really do what I do? Because it does feel like that. But I think that's quite normal to have that little bit of doubt. And you know, and appreciate that that's okay. 

 

Student Interviewers 14:29

Was all the work you put in worth it?

 

Sharon Strugnell 14:31

Absolutely. Yeah. I love the job that I do. And I love the career that I have. And I'm very fortunate in the fact that I've married an engineer. So even when we're not working we're talking about engineering, when we're, I say out and about, not that we've been able to go out and about much during COVID. But still yeah, we both share a very similar outlook. And when it comes to engineering, I'm pleased that I can have them conversations outside of work about other parts because engineering is such a broad subject as well.

 

Student Interviewers 14:56

Are you proud of how far you've come?

 

Sharon Strugnell 14:58

Yeah, but it probably links back to I was saying before about a bit of imposter syndrome, I think sometimes I do have to pinch myself a little bit and think well, actually, for my age and where I am, you know, it's pretty impressive. But it's been a lot of hard work to get there, and passion. But yeah, no, I'm definitely, definitely proud of myself in that respect.

 

Student Interviewers 15:16

How competitive is your job?

 

Sharon Strugnell 15:19

When it comes to getting a job within the industry, because the market’s so buoyant at the moment, and there's such a high demand for engineers, and I would say, maybe there's not as much competition as there has been in recent years. With regards to competition within my actual day to day job, again, I wouldn't say it's a competitive industry. I think everyone works very collaboratively. We work, you know, we all acknowledge the fact that we bring strengths to our team. So there isn't really a competition. Now, we don't work independently, we work as a as a team. I mean, there is a competitive aspect when you consider project delivery. Because when you think about how projects are won, we work on teams, but you know, clients don't just come to us and say, oh, you know, please, can you come and help us with this project? How much is it going to cost? What they'll say is, can you provide a cost for doing this project, but they won't just come to my team, they'll go to several teams across the industry. So there is a level of competition there. But that's a very commercial competition.

 

Student Interviewers 16:14

So what is your day to day life as an engineer, like?

 

Sharon Strugnell 16:18

At the moment, I think it's probably hard to do day to day. I’d probably end up doing week to week to week. So in any one week, I could be involved in the design of a structure. And that would be maybe at my level now probably more to do with checking calculations. So it might be that one of the engineers in our team has come up with a concept, they have carried out a design and associated with that design, there'll be some analysis and some calculation. So I might be involved in checking that. Or it might be that that's been translated to a report that I'll then check. And then like I mentioned before, there's also the project delivery aspects. So there'll be a lot of time spent during my week talking to clients finding or reporting on progress, finding out what they need. So communication is a massive part of any job in engineering, not just civil engineering, talking to clients, talking to your teams. There is a big part of this that’s communication led. And there's also like I said before the people management, whether that's within a project team or within a delivery team, right, what I what I lead, and that can be down to just general personnel matters. That might be down to resourcing, you know, thinking about what's the next project? You know, not every project lasts forever. What does that mean for the team? What's their strengths, what can they help on within the business. So there's definitely a massive communication part to my job. But then there's also the delivery aspect, which is then where I'm involved in the technical deliverables and checking or preparing them, and making sure they go out the door on time to the client to keep the client happy.

 

Student Interviewers 17:43

What's the best project you’ve worked on?

 

Sharon Strugnell 17:46

Out of all the projects that I've worked on? Crossrail. I was involved in the design of the temporary work scheme for one of the tunnels there. And it was, it was a very tricky piece of engineering, the permanent works designer design their part and then they've not really thought about how it would actually be constructed. So I was involved in the team in delivering that. Out of all the projects I've worked on, that's the one that really does stick with me as me having a really good involvement and one to show the children when we do day trips to London.

 

Student Interviewers 18:15

So do you have any role models that have inspired you?

 

Sharon Strugnell 18:20

Initially, my role models were my parents? Yeah, I have very hard working parents. Both worked full time. Both of them had no degree education, but shared a really good work ethic. And my dad is from an engineering type of career. And he always kind of influenced me and made me realise just how rewarding engineering is. And then as I've kind of continued into my career, I would say my husband is one of my role models. I see the immense work that he works on, or the projects that he works on and what he delivers. And that’s always inspired me to keep going. And we're also very fortunate and probably a little bit more specific to females in engineering… the business that I've recently joined has a director who recently served as the ICE president, which is the Institution of Civil Engineers. And she is a big advocate for net zero and shaping the industry to consider carbon and the sustainability part of our jobs. And I've always found her energy and drive towards that really quite inspiring. So at the moment, she's definitely one of the role models that I look up to.

 

Student Interviewers 19:25

Do you have any recommendations of other resources that could help us to learn more about Civil Engineering and Architecture?

 

Sharon Strugnell 19:32

Anybody that's interested in learning a bit more about civil engineering, go online and visits the ICE web page, which gives you a really good explanation as to what civil engineering is and what civil engineers do. I think with regards to other types of media you've got on the TV programme basis, I know this is one of the things I used to love watching but you've got TV programmes, such as Mega Structures and Big Biggest Bigger, I think that's the title. Richard Hammond did a really good one on structures that you can get through Amazon. And it looks at some of the really cool infrastructure that's quite popular around the world and actually goes, stripped it back to basics and talks about some of the engineering challenges and how engineers have overcome them. They're really good programmes to watch if you're interested. Again, especially from an architecture point of view, as well, that that's a really nice link in there. With regards to podcasts, podcasts are becoming quite popular. I know in the last 18 months, I've definitely discovered a lot of podcasts. And the one that comes to mind is one that's through the New Civil Engineer, which is basically the magazine that we, as engineers, civil engineers tend to subscribe to. And then there is a lot more specific podcasts out there, depending on what you're really interested in. I follow one that's all about tunnelling, that's of interest to me, because that's where I've kind of found myself within my profession. But yeah, podcasts are a really good thing to listen to. And TV shows, I think that sort of media is a really good insight into what we do. But I think if people are wanting to know a little bit more generally about civil engineering, I would definitely recommend them to go to the ICE website. Just to come back to something that was mentioned earlier in the call about you know, where your interests lie, you're 100% correct in the fact that architects and civil engineers work very closely together, like I mentioned to you, reading up a little bit more about civil engineering might help you make your mind up as to whether you think architecture is the right thing or whether maybe civil engineering is the route you want to go down.

 

Outro 21:21

Thank you for joining another Stem Untapped podcast. If you know of a school or group of students that would like to interview female STEM role models to get in touch. Likewise, if you know of anyone who would be a great female STEM role model, please do let us know. Our details are all documented in the show notes.