This is the transcript for Interested in combining your Engineering degree with the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation?
Hi I am Juliet. I’m a second year engineering and BCII student. I was born in Sydney but I grew up in England.
Honestly, the reason I took it in the first place was it sounded kind of cool. And with engineering doing BCII takes no extra time. So it seemed like I was getting two for one, which was a pretty good deal. The reason I stayed was so much more. I love the social aspects of the degree and the range of the people you meet, the industry exposure, but mainly I love solving problems. As an engineer, it is our role to create a better world, for the future generations, and I think the BCII is really going to help me do that.
Sometimes the ideas in BCII are quite abstract, and I think it really complements the often quite logical thinking that is needed in my engineering degree. It’s always important to have more than one way to think.
BCII has given me the ability to think logically, abstractly and critically all at the same time. And it’s been really helpful, especially in group design projects. In one of my engineering subjects this year, we had to design something that would help with the bushfires. And I think BCII allowed me to bring a really different perspective to my group.
The engineering process is often very linear. And while this simplifies a lot of the more complicated work, it can miss out key aspects. Curing the symptoms but not the disease, so to speak. Transdisciplinary skills help you dig a little deeper and consider all the aspects of the problem. As the world gets more complicated, so does its problems and it’s very hard to actually solve them with a linear mindset.
So there’s so many favourite experiences to choose from, from lunches with friends on the alumni green to getting to do some work with International Conference Centre Sydney based off my first project in Winter School, to satisfaction and group celebration when you finally hit that submit button at 11:58pm. With that being said, my favourite moment has to come from the experience of being on the executive committee with BCII connect, which is our social society. Every year during O’week without giving too much away, the first year of BCII students do a scavenger hunt and this year, I was tasked with creating it. A few weeks ago, someone posted in one of our social Facebook groups that about how they felt that doing the scavenger hunt had been so beneficial because despite lockdown, they felt like they had friends at Uni. And they’ve been having zoom drinks ever since. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but it honestly brought a bit of a tear to my eye.
The most rewarding element of my studies so far hasn’t been a single moment. It’s been, being able to create solutions to real world problems in two days, and just the knowledge and affirmation, if I can do that, I definitely have the power to make the world a better place.
Ask yourself what’s holding you back? Is the reason the lack of holidays because I guarantee you there are still plenty. Then you know if all these reasons are just fear, ignore it and jump right in.
Without being too cheesy, my way of describing the BCII in three words, would be just do it!