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Lisa Miles
2 minute read time.
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ is something that we’re all asked when we’re young. But how many of us are true to our answer back then? How many of us know what we really want to do at such an early stage in life and have actually stuck to that plan? 


What if we made a mistake? What if we missed our true calling? What if…?

 

I have to confess that I really didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was young. I went through phases of wanting to work with animals, wanting to travel, wanting to be a translator for the European Parliament (bizarre I know!). However, I’ve had a lot of interesting roles during my working life, learning and experiencing a great deal, and come into contact with some amazing and inspirational people. If I’m honest, I wouldn’t change that for the world! 


But every now and again I do wonder what I’d be doing if I wasn’t working as the online community manager for the IET?


Sometimes I wish I had become an Architect as, when I was very young, I used to love drawing floorplans for houses, layouts for shopping centres, factories and planning towns! The Technical Drawing teacher at school gave me a lot of praise for my classwork but I was never encouraged to pursue it further as it wasn’t something that ‘girls’ did… In fact it was something I was strongly advised against taking up as an option in secondary school as I was told I would be the ‘only girl’ in the class. Looking back, I wish I had listened to my heart and not everyone else. If I had, who knows where I would be and what I'd be doing right now...!


Occasionally I also wish I had got into video directing/editing and creating amazing content like this:




I don’t think anyone would disagree with me when I say that the Top Gear video production team are excellent at what they do and I would love to spend an afternoon with their video/sound editing team! wink Although maybe not so much now that Messrs Clarkson, Hammond and May are no longer involved… sad


I often wonder how many of us have qualifications in one subject but end up doing something completely unrelated...


Did you always want to be an Engineer? Was there something else you always wanted to be? Something you wished you’d done instead? Do you still see yourself as an Engineer in 5,10,15 years from now?  Share your own thoughts in the comments below and take part in our short survey.

 
8e074d438a96bbc614866cdfeb447798-mediumsquare-lisa2017.jpgA self-confessed Geek and a HUGE James Bond fan, Lisa is the Online Community Manager for the IET's Engineering Communities online community platform. In her spare time she likes to spend more time behind a video camera than she does in front of it…wink

 

  • I remember seeing something on TV about those automotive clay models Mark Curtis‍, and thinking how detailed they were. A real work of art! 


    I worked with a woman who was a very successful Sales Manager for a previous employer. After 10 years she gave it all up and became a post-woman for the village she lived in. And when I say post-woman I mean the 'delivering the mail on a bicycle' kind and not the running the village post office kind! I asked her why the complete change in career and she told me that she'd always wanted to be a post-woman when she was a little girl and she'd had enough of the stress that came with the fast paced sales environment. How's that for chalk and cheese? :o)
  • So the Yardbirds song goes "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, baker, fine shoe-maker, wise man, madman, taxman..." Amusing but golly, where to start! As a teen I wanted to be a policeman (motorcycle mounted to be specific) or army officer. I was technically able yet artistically more motivated and so wanted to be a commercial artist. But I was heavily cajoled and ultimately persuaded by the so-called careers teacher to become an "Engineer" via an apprenticeship (his theory was that artists didn't amount to much(!) and that it would be wiser to have a trade to 'fall back on' and after having gained that 'trade' I could 'try art'). I did briefly try army officer and even ran an NHS hospital(!) for 10 years but always returned to my original "profession" - engineering. What else 'might' I have been? architect, doctor, surgeon, intelligence officer, artist - maybe one day as it’s never too late to change.


    A design engineer friend at age 55 decided to change careers and become an automotive clay modeller making models of new cars out of clay for the major automotive OEMs all over the world - which he successfully achieved and spent the next 15 years happily doing until he retired - only he hasn't really and is now a currency trader! Go figure.
  • I agree Deborah-Claire McKenzie‍! Working at the IET certainly brings you into contact with some fascinating topics. I only wish I'd known about and taken more interest in Engineering from an earlier age. 
  • Interesting blog Lisa Miles‍  I'm not an engineer, but thankful that being a Community Manager for the IET brings me into contact with a wide ranging scope of fascinating and informative members from whom I've learnt so much over the years.  I went through a phase of wanting to be a Helicopter Pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, a military historian/archaeologist, a meteorologist as I've always been interested in the weather especially thunderstorms and then a cartographer, as I love looking at maps, especially on google and thanks to engineering we can now view previously hidden objects on the ground through Lidar technology which really interests me.  
  • Thanks for sharing your story Ruggero Tommasini‍.  Wishing you every success in attaining your Degree! :o)

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