7.00 AM
I wake up and ride my bike while listening to some good music, or a podcast if I’m feeling hungry for inspiration and information.
8.00 AM
Unfortunately, I was feeling hungrier for food. It’s time for breakfast! I eat a bowl of cereal with a cool glass of water.
9.00 AM
Today I’m working from home in Adelaide. With most of my team working in Melbourne, we’ve agreed to have regular check-in meetings in the morning to help keep everyone connected. This is where our senior engineers often divulge the latest programmatic-level updates. We hear about how a non-disclosure agreement is progressing and some systems engineering architecture for a brand new project. For the junior engineers, like myself and another graduate in the team, we have an opportunity to share what we accomplished since yesterday and to discuss plans and potential blockers for today. The senior engineers are often able to draw upon their experience to offer guidance and even direct us towards other colleagues who might be better positioned to support us.
9.20 AM
After the morning meeting, I check my emails to see if anything urgently needs my attention. I also look at my calendar and notice I have an interesting committee meeting with some colleagues in the UK and USA later this evening.
9.45 AM
With all immediate issues resolved, I’m ready to dive into the bulk of my work for today. In my current graduate rotation, I’ve been looking into the interplay between a rocket trajectory and all sorts of rocket design parameters including elements of its aerodynamics, control systems, and motor. We’ve previously performed some systems engineering analysis to decompose the problem, identify and prioritise subsystems for development, and propose a method for analysing data from our simulations. I’m spoilt for choice with this smorgasbord of rocket design work! What I’ll work on today is the development of an analysis dashboard to visualise our simulation results in preparation for a sensitivity analysis.
1.00 PM
I’m feeling hungry again. It must be time for lunch.
1.30 PM
Feeling full of energy, I chat with the other graduate engineer on the team as we talk through some of our problems and collaborate to resolve them. He shows me some of his great work in toggling the rocket to be actively controlled. We also use this time to carefully merge some of our changes to the simulation with the aid of some handy software engineering tools.
2.00 PM
Thankfully there weren’t any significant merge conflicts this time. With the core functional elements of the analysis dashboard implemented, I’ll spend the rest of the day making it a bit more user-friendly.
5.00 PM
I finish the day by leaving myself some notes for tomorrow. I’ve found this to be an effective way to clear my mind and enable myself to properly relax. I always like to hop on LinkedIn after work to celebrate any new achievements of those in my professional network. I also read the latest news in the STEM world, where the successful first images from the James Webb Space Telescope are capturing my attention.
6.00 PM
It’s time for dinner and to relax with whatever funny videos I find on the internet.
8.30 PM
I’ve volunteered to attend online fortnightly meetings with some BAE Systems colleagues from the UK and USA as part of BAE’s international graduate engagement committee. The timing is a little bit awkward, but that’s the reality of meeting with people from across the globe. We talk about ideas that aim to benefit graduates in all of our countries including topics like increasing the awareness of the differences in how engineering and business are conducted internationally, coordinating activities to help graduates network with each other between different countries, and investigating genuine opportunities for international secondments.
9.30 PM
After listening to many accents and just as many progress updates, I get myself ready for bed feeling content with the achievements of the day.
An international career hopefully kick-started by an international secondment in the near future.