I went to UCL to study a 4-year programme in Mechanical Engineering. I wanted to work with big gas and steam turbines, for propulsion or bulk power generation. While there I realised that control systems were very interesting as well. UCL has (or at least had) a policy of housing every Fresher, and as many Finalists as it could fit into the remaining space. In my first year I was in Halls, then in rented accomodation with friends from my course for the second and third years, then for the fourth and final year we all applied to go back into Halls. Everyone was accepted… apart from me. I don’t blame UCL obviously; it was just a lottery.

But that was a turning point in my life, the point at which I drifted away both from academia and that branch of engineering. In retrospect I guess I could have found some people who were in the same boat and rented a house with them, kept the immersion in college life and finished the year, but it was too easy not to. I actively avoid Java now, but in the mid-late 90s it was both cool and hot, as an early adopter I could easily get work much, much better paid than any of the big engineering companies offered their graduate trainees, and I would get to stay in London, which I thought at the time was very important. I kept working like I had been over the summer, I was living off-campus, I thought I could find a way to make it all work, but I couldn’t and before I even realized, the year was over, I had missed too many lectures and not even made a start on my dissertation. I graduated with a BEng instead of an MEng.

It would be a stretch to say I regretted any of this; some of the friends I made working for a startup that year are still close friends today, for example, and I have built a solid career in the software engineering field. But at the same time I am conscious of the lost opportunity; London and all it offered would always have been there, whereas when the final term of the final year ends, that chapter is over forever. And maybe if I had stayed in that field I would be working at SpaceX or something now! So if I have any advice for students starting this year it’s to make the most of your time as an undergrad because it will be over in the blink of an eye. But also if an opportunity is there, take it!