Olubayo Latinwo
Like most expatriate Africans, I long, at some point in my life, for the opportunity to go `home´ and work, unfortunately, opportunities for a good livelihood there are limited mostly in the oil/energy, construction and government sectors. This situation, leads to the usual influx of applications to study conventional subjects such as Geology, Chemical and Mechanical Engineering. As things currently stand, these subjects lead to what already are oversaturated options. However, through my studies at Sheffield I discovered another yet very exciting way of breaking away from the pack.
Doing an Aerospace Masters Degree at the University of Sheffield, I was exposed to the world of Engineering Materials, arguably the most important, yet underrated engineering discipline available. Most people are unaware of what a Metallurgist or Material Scientist is, yet you´ll see the results of their input in every Oil field, refinery plant, road construction, subsea vessel (and platform), aircraft, power station, mobile phone, submarine, satellite, space shuttle, F1 car, tank, rocket, nuclear fusion reactor and even hip replacement.
Materials Engineers are in high demand. Anyone with over 5- 10 years experience in the right field can pick working across a wide array of exotic locations around the world with a premium remuneration package.
With this in mind, I enrolled for an Engineering Materials PhD in 2005 and I am now a Research Associate for a renowned research group at the Department of Engineering Materials known as IMMPETUS, currently working on 3 separate projects for 3 separate industries, international aerospace, manufacturing and oil/gas clients.
This gives me to perfect launching pad to make a name for myself in countries in the Middle East, Asia, South America, before touring Africa and settling in Nigeria. Best yet, the versatility of my work means I get to work on any stage of development during a project, across mining, refining, melting, billet production, component processing, infrastructure instalment, maintenance, reconditioning and failure mechanism analysis, even recycling and back to process optimisation. No two jobs are the same and the exposure is vast. What makes it better is that people simply don´t know such a discipline even exists, therefore reducing the dramatic levels of competition for employment in the saturated traditional engineering disciplines.
I´m glad I didn´t follow the crowd as I´m carving an unbridled future for myself as a world class metallurgist. I´ve made my future career progression 1000 times better and at the same time, a 1000 times easier. That´s insight money can´t buy.