The highlight of my studies has been the opportunity to study at the University of Queensland in Brisbane

Watch: Our interview with Hana

I decided to choose Chemical Engineering at the University of Sheffield because I found I enjoyed and always excelled at chemistry, maths and biology so I wanted to study a degree that combined all of these different aspects. Not having engineers in my family or guidance I came across chemical engineering in a brochure and I found that it combined the different aspects I enjoyed so I took a risk and decided to choose it. I chose the University of Sheffield because on the open day I found the department to be warm and friendly and also the quality of the research, the global and industry links - all of these different factors helped make my decision to choose the University.

The highlight of my studies have been in my third year. I had the opportunity to travel to Australia and study at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. This was an amazing opportunity as it allowed me to become much more confident and social but it also allowed me to interact with other engineers from across the globe. I feel this is very important because employers don't only want you to have the academic side they want additional factors and this allowed me to add much more depth to my CV.

While I was in Australia I got involved in Engineers Without Borders Australia and had the opportunity to travel to Cambodia for two weeks. We stayed on a rural island and initially observed their lifestyle to see how we could apply our engineering knowledge and potentially improve their lifestyle. We looked at things such as waste disposal, water sanitation and planting of rice grain and we presented our ideas to the community to see if this was something they would like to implement using their natural resources. This was really an eye opener for me because it allowed me to appreciate my lifestyle but also seeing how engineering can be used as a positive impact and humanitarian engineering is something that I would be interested in now as a result of that.

The best thing about being an engineering student is the wide variety of modules available to study. In chemical engineering we study an energy module, a water module, a fuel and utilisation module and all these different modules allow you to find what you like and what you dislike and what you would potentially like to pursue as a future career. Because there are so many different disciplines of engineering for example mechanical, biological, you are able to meet and become friends with a wide variety of people, international and local. From studying chemical engineering for the past three years I’ve learnt that engineering can have a positive impact on a global scale and I've also learnt that because of the wide variety of disciplines there are an immense amount of opportunities for a wide variety of people so it’s definitely a future career individuals should consider.

We interviewed Hana in 2016.