Harriet Hulland

My materials engineering degree gave me the technical knowledge of the structure of materials that I use on a day to day bases to determine root cause analysis for failure investigations and to assess corrosions issues and advice how to best mitigate them where possible.

Without materials engineering many of the things that we use to protect our submarines would not exist, like the acoustic and anti-radar tiles which clad the outsides of the subs, which prevent our submarines from being discovered by their enemies.

The shielding which surrounds the nuclear reactor so that the crew remains safe from the radiation while the reactor powers the electrical generators on the ship. These are materials challenges that have been overcome which would not have been possible without the field of materials engineering.

Why did you choose to study Materials?

I chose to pursue materials engineering as i thought it was the combination of physics and chemistry that I liked with the engineering slant that I found most interesting without some of the hardcore maths that I didn’t like.

I also did some research into the field and found it quite interesting, and I thought that I could make a good career out of it which I thought was important as I knew I wouldn't stay in academia.

Harriet’s experience as a student

I chose Loughborough because it felt safe and welcoming when I went to the open-day I also wanted a campus university.

I enjoyed studying at university and found it was more relaxed than school but because my course had a lot of contact hours, I usually had lectures 09:00-17:00 most days so I tended to treat it like school and do my uni work in my gaps between lectures so that when I got home I didn’t have to work too much.

As we got Wednesday afternoons off for sport, I joined the girls rugby team and played most weeks. I would strongly suggest joining a club or picking up a sport as it’s nice to meet people who are not on your course.