Name: Jessica DowdyUniversity: Oxford Brookes University
Course: Construction Project Management
Jessica is the Construction, Engineering & Design Undergraduate of the Year 2015 with Laing O'Rourke! She never thought that she'd win let alone be planning a two month trip to Australia!
The process began for me when I visited the TARGETJobs stall at a careers fair during my first year of university. Over the next couple of years I received weekly emails of job opportunities in my sector, including industrial and summer placements. While these were always interesting to read, I was not in the position where I could utilise these opportunities as I already had placements arranged. However, receiving emails with the words ‘Undergraduate of the Year Awards’ in the subject line did draw my attention. As I read through the emails and information provided, I thought this was a great opportunity and was highly impressed by what I had read about previous winners. Whilst reaching the final never even crossed my mind at this stage, I had been through a similar process for a slightly different award the year before which had gone a lot better than expected. Therefore, after careful consideration and discussions with various peers, I decided to enter into the competition, with the opinion that it was likely to be an invaluable experience and I had nothing to lose. Little did I know, I had a lot to gain!
The application stages were nearing the end when I chose to apply, so I had little time to fill in my personal details and answer the award-specific questions from the sponsor, Laing O’Rourke. Admittedly, I was so pre-occupied at work that I would have missed the completion deadline had I not received a call from one of the TARGETJobs Events team reminding me to finish my application, so thank you for that! The questions were thought provoking and challenging to answer within the word limit; yet they allowed me to express my views on two topics which I am very interested in so I enjoyed completing them. By contrast, I found the online tests really difficult and thought there was no chance I would be continuing to the next stage!
A couple of weeks later I received an email informing me that I had been invited to the Assessment Day with Laing O’Rourke at one of their offices. Nervous yet excited, I travelled up towards Nottinghamshire for what was a challenging but thoroughly enjoyable day. It was great to share experiences with the other candidates and to meet the assessors, some of which had been in a similar position to all of us not so long ago. We were even fortunate enough to gain an insight into the very technical and innovative engineering techniques through a factory tour of the Explore Industrial Park, where the off-site manufacturing takes place. Regardless of the next stages of the competition, I felt very grateful for the experience and it was wonderful to meet so many talented people; both assessors and fellow students.
Following on from this, the ten finalists received an email inviting them to the Grand Final in Canary Wharf; this was a shock to say the least! Receiving the invitation through the post and discovering that Fiona Bruce would be presenting was the icing on the cake as I have been inspired by her work over the last few years. The day itself was wonderful. Sitting in a room surrounded by so many talented, ambitious and hard-working finalists was extremely motivational; not to mention the attendees from sponsor companies who have all achieved great success in their careers. It was a great networking opportunity and very inspiring, particularly as a woman hearing Fiona’s speech and watching a high number of females collecting the top prize! Hearing my name called out as the winner of my category was totally unexpected, particularly as I was the only non-engineer, so thought I would be completely ruled-out! Sharing the stage and receiving an award from Fiona was surreal and didn’t sink in for quite some time, in fact I still don’t think it has! The other candidates were fantastic and I would like to congratulate them all and wish them every success in their careers.
Thank you to TARGETJobs, Laing O’Rourke and everyone else involved in the process. My advice to those of you who may be reading this and are in a position to apply for the 2016 awards, would be to ‘go for it!’ There is absolutely nothing to lose and you may end up surprising yourself just like I did. Good luck!
Congratulations Jessica and to all the other finalists!Pre-registration for the 2016 Awards is now open here! http://undergraduateoftheyear.com/register
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave your comments and feedback here: