Why Engineering

Hey folks, thought it was time for a bit of a side story to add to what I have told you so far. As the post title suggests I am going to talk about why I picked Engineering or as some people would tell me off, it's Marine Engineering and not just Engineering. Anyway this is a bit of a weird one really. To start with I had no interest in Engineering. The Sea Cadets offer it as an area you can learn, but I wasn't bothered with it well not to start with anyway. I wanted to be a Warfare Officer in the Royal Navy, so why would I need to know about engines. Then one night when I was in the unit a bunch of my mates where booking a Marine Engineering 3rd class course at H.M.S Gannet (This is where the Northern Area Marine Engineering school was) and I had my arm twisted and said I would go to. I went along thinking I would be quite bored, I wasn't interested in this field but I went along with it anyway. I think this is the point the interest started, I scored well on the course, even though the course was very basic it was still interesting. Though I still left it thinking I wasn't fussed with it all. Then everyone decided to book onto the 2nd class course the next level up, again my arm was twisted to go.


Now remember within the Sea Cadets it was based on Marine Engineering and not just Engineering so its more relevant, so I attended this course, well the two weekends as it was a longer course and was split into Mechanical and Electrical sections and I passed with good marks again, so now I was really interested in what was going on as we got more in depth and I wanted to know more, along with the 2nd class we also got our RYA Diesel Engine course as we covered the same stuff so that was another string to my bow. So when we got back, me and my mate booked onto the 1st class mechanical course as I was more interested the mechanical and since it was a higher level again each section was a week long course and it became 2 qualifications, so we spent a whole week learning the mechanical workings of an engine, got to take bigger engines apart and where given projects to either fix or report on which was very interesting stuff I was loving it. After starting out not bothered, then to being really into it and fairly confident with it as well. I didn't manage to do the 1st class electrical course as it was cancelled due to low numbers.


As for engineering after this, when I did the car mechanics course it was mainly on engines and the systems that feed them like cooling, fuel, lubrication etc, I remember we where put into pairs and given a work bench and on this work bench was a 4 cylinder car engine that had been cut out a scrapped car, our job was to take off all the hoses and rubbish that comes with them and get it to the bare bones. Once we had completed that we had to strip off the parts as if we where going to do a repair job (so this means remove the belt without just flicking it off with a screw driver as someone had decided to do (not me)). We took it totally apart, further than I had ever got to with the cadets, we removed the cylinders to, completed measurements on things like the cam shaft and crank shaft then put them together again. Although we put our pistons back in and had to strip it again 3 out of 4 pistons where round the wrong way. Yes they had arrows showing you what way then where put in and yes we didn't notice them and yes we messed it up everyone does at some point. The arrows should have been pointing 180 degrees in the other direction.


So this brought me to the choice of wanting to do engineering, I love getting stuck in. I like to take things apart and fix or clean them and put it back together, I like to see I have made something work after it being broken or faulty. Although on top of this, it is a good thing I picked the engineering department over the deck side as I can work round my eyesight weakness, with deck I would have no chance so I am just glad I can still do the job I picked.