Yetade Ayileka

MEng Computer Systems Engineering with Management

Winner of the Nigeria 50% Undergraduate Scholarship 2009

I attended high school in Nigeria where I obtained a West African Examination Council (WAEC) Certificate in addition to IGCSE´s. I then went on to Abbey College in Cambridge, where I took A-levels in Mathematics, Physics, Computing and Economics before proceeding to the University of Sheffield for my undergraduate degree.

I chose to come to Sheffield University because it´s Automatic Control and Systems Engineering (ACSE) department is the largest department in the UK dedicated to studying control and systems engineering. Moreover, the university is ranked among the top universities for research and innovation in the UK, and it has the highest ratings possible for teaching. I also chose this university because the Student Union is rated as one of the best in the UK.

At the university, my lectures actually make me think and read beyond the content being taught in the lectures. This helps increase my knowledge base. The ACSE department is run in such a way that all first years study the same modules; this means that we are taught a wide range of modules and we gain knowledge of things that are not directly related to our individual courses but will be very useful to us as young engineers. Also, within the department we have some really interesting projects to carry out; for example we had to program Lego Mindstorm robots in our first week which was really basic but fun as well.

We have laboratory classes regularly to support the lectures. These labs help to understand the lecture content better and they also help to illustrate the connections between the individual modules of the course. In addition, we also have guest lecturers from the engineering industry who come in to talk to us about the applications of our degrees in their companies and what is expected of an engineering graduate in that particular company. These labs together with the group projects carried out teach us the basics of engineering practices in the workplace and they help us to develop our team-working skills which are fundamental in industry.

Teaching and studying methods at university are very different from those at college. At school, most of the time was spent in classes where the content was delivered, while at university most of the time is spent on individual research. At university we have to carry out loads of extra studying and research; what is taught in lectures usually acts as a guideline for the student to go and research further and come up with alternative solutions to problems identified in lectures and decide which of these solutions will be the most effective to solve those problems.

The university demands the best from its students; this motivates students to put in great effort into their courses and hence emerge with good quality world class degrees, making any University of Sheffield graduate highly employable in almost any country in the world.

Outside lectures, there is something for everyone to participate in. There is a wide range of extracurricular activities, from sports and outdoor activities to debates. The presence of various support systems to help new students settle down into university life is also a bonus. Moreover there is a large and diverse international community at the university; we get to meet a lot of people from different cultural backgrounds and we get to learn a little bit about different cultures.

On completing my course, I hope to have gained more than sufficient knowledge about the course content and I hope to have developed skills to help me succeed in the workplace as an individual and also as part of a team. Armed with my degree and these skills, I hope to secure a job working in the transport sector.

My advice to prospective students is "Don´t be too worried about settling down into university life". You´ll be very surprised at how easy it is to settle into a routine, moreover, there are support systems in place. If you do feel like you need to talk to someone, there´s always someone to talk to, about settling in, school work, whatever it is! Another thing is "try and get involved in societies and activities outside lectures". These are great ways to meet new people with similar interests and it helps you maintain a good balance in addition to looking good on your CV!