Global Subsea Engineering MSc (Campus)

Alan Ross

When considering further education, I was eager to study a technical degree at university. When researching potential universities, I found a lot of evidence that indicated the University of Aberdeen has a very good reputation from an engineering standpoint. Worldwide, there are endless engineering opportunities in numerous different industries. I viewed the University of Aberdeen as an ideal place to develop my technical skills as much as possible before eventually deciding on my engineering career.

I was born and raised in Aberdeen and I have been very fortunate to have several engineering education/professional opportunities right on my doorstep. Studying in my hometown has had a lot of advantages but there are a lot of experiences and opportunities to be gained by people from out with Aberdeen, who may be thinking about a potential move to the city for study at university. For a student, Aberdeen is a great place to live, work and study and importantly Aberdeen has endless career opportunities for new graduates.

Completing an MSc in Subsea Engineering allowed me to understand ways in which I could apply the engineering skills I had developed during my undergraduate studies. The degree content ideally blended tuition of technical engineering methods and standards with tuition of how such methods/standards are applied for numerous practical applications in a subsea environment.

During my postgraduate study, I was also very fortunate to get the chance to learn and work with many different people from many different countries. My subsea engineering class comprised engineers from countries all over the world such as Nigeria, Angola, Yemen, Malaysia and Ukraine to name a few. Working with fellow-students from so many different cultures was hugely enjoyable and I very much enjoyed making new colleagues and friends during my time at the University of Aberdeen. I feel this experience was very influential in terms of developing my networking skills, which has been hugely invaluable since starting work full-time as an engineer with Subsea 7.

All of these experiences during my year of post-graduate study provided the ideal platform for starting my career as a subsea engineer in the oil and gas industry.