Sian Owen

Ever since I was young I have loved cars and the engineering that goes into making them move. No-one was surprised when I chose the specialist Automotive Engineering course at the University of Leeds.

One of the highlights of my degree was Formula Student, a competition where student teams from all over the world compete to buildand race a single seat race car. Leeds was the first ever UK participant in Formula Student, so the team could draw on an amazing wealth of experience in the competition. Of course, this is serious work: the competition extended my technical knowledge, fostered good teamwork skills and let me network with people from industry and other universities. 

During my degree I also benefited from the excellent ties Leeds has with the electronics company National Instruments. I was able to take units in electronics as well as design and simulation techniques. My dissertation also involved electronics and simulation and this experience marked me out as a rarity among the other engineering graduates applying to Jaguar Land Rover’s graduate scheme.

I heard about the graduate scheme through the department’s close ties with graduates now working in the company. And now the skills and experiences I gained at university have helped me to get the job I really wanted in the powertrain department – my childhood curiosity lives on!