As a European student who applied before the Brexit vote, I chose to study at the University of Edinburgh because of its relatively high ranking and low fees. Other options I was considering were a number of universities in the UK as well as the more conventional engineering path in my home country, France.

While my criteria for choosing Edinburgh were quite simple and pragmatic, this university has proved to give me far more opportunities than I could ever have hoped for.

Since graduation I've been working at SpaceX, more specifically on the Starlink program. I started off as a mechanical tooling engineer on a consumer hardware production line, with some level of project management in that role.

I then gained interest in factory automation – taking that mechanical tooling and making it move – and started pivoting towards that direction. However, a few months into that I realized it wasn't quite the right fit for me either, and pivoted once more. It was about eight to nine months into my time at SpaceX that I started doing data analysis.

At the start, while still on a mechanical and factory oriented team, I worked to assess the viability of a future product which involved both hands-on testing and data gathering as well as higher level analyses. In the year-long period I did this work, I shouldered a few projects unrelated to data analysis to help my mechanical peers and the program as a whole; these included setting up a factory simulation, bringing up a production line, and even helping with the study of an international market.

Finally, another six months later I transitioned to a team which does data analysis to understand the field performance and reliability of consumer hardware. I've remained in this team ever since.

My current title is Starlink Engineer II, and I work on a hardware reliability team as a data analyst. My responsibilities include building tools to understand consumer hardware performance and reliability as well as carrying out investigations to find the root cause of issues we notice in the field.

The team I work in is at a crossroads within the program. On any given week I may work with mechanical, electrical, radio frequency, software, and network engineers as well as project managers, and our customer support team. On one day I might be speaking directly with customers to understand the issues we're facing, and on another I might be focused on managing lower level data pipelines to improve the tools we use and the speed at which we can access information.

This collaboration I have with many teams, the ability I've had to impact program-level decisions, and the exposure I've had to our customers' experience are all rewarding aspects of my job.

Two specific opportunities which I had at the University of Edinburgh led me to where I am today. First, I joined the HYPED (hyperloop) engineering team and was very involved from the start. Two years in, the team took me to two of SpaceX's hyperloop pod competitions in California (the travel partially funded by one of the University's initiatives), which exposed me to SpaceX engineers.

As a result I got hired as an intern for my six-month placement, which proved to be the second opportunity which eventually landed me my job after graduation. Another non-negligible opportunity which helped me get my job was my year on exchange at Caltech, which I am very grateful for.

There are a plethora of skills I learned at university and now use for my work. These include all foundational electrical and mechanical courses which give me the baggage needed to understand and learn about the complex system that Starlink represents; the math and more programming oriented courses are useful to me in analysing data; and above all else, it's the "learning how to learn" part of university which is most useful on a daily basis. One does not leave university knowing everything, but in a position to learn about anything.

I did an MEng placement and a summer internship. I did undertake work experience while at university and it was crucial in me understanding the direction I wanted to go in professionally. More than the exact subject matter of my job (mechanical tooling, factory automation and data analysis), my professional placement helped me confirm the industry and company culture I wanted to work in.

It's important to note that not everyone who studies engineering chooses to go on to work in engineering professionally. My work experience gave me confirmation that I did indeed want to work in STEM (as opposed, say, to work in finance or consulting), and that I enjoyed working in a high-energy, meritocratic, and low-ego environment where things move fast.

For someone looking to work in engineering, the single most impactful thing to do is to join a student engineering team or otherwise work on engineering projects to build your practical experience. Developing your engineering judgment and intuition through practical work is essential, and I haven't found a single hiring manager in industry who disagrees.

A couple broader notes would be to focus on understanding rather than scores, and to never lose sight of mental nor physical health. University is also an invaluable place to meet new people and gain new perspectives.