A Solihull College & University Centre student is looking forward to his future after completing his HND during lockdown.
Pierce Brookes, 23 from Sutton Coldfield, has completed his HND in Civil Engineering alongside his job as a Technician working in the Structures department for Waterman Aspen. He started on a BTEC level 3 in in 2015 which took 2 years to complete, moving on to the HNC in Construction (Civil Engineering) in 2017 for 2 years before recently completing his HND in Construction (Civil Engineering) in 2020.
Pierce has relished his time at College. He comments: “I have found the HND very enjoyable. There is a variety of units which you can chose in order to tailor the qualification to what you want to achieve. My plans now are to continue my studying by doing a top up degree to gain a BEng in Civil and Transportation Engineering. From there my goal is to become an Incorporated Engineer (IEng) with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), study a Masters and in the long run becoming a chartered engineer.”
Pierce has managed to complete his course in one year whilst studying alongside his job, 20% of the week on the course is designated as ‘off the job’ training. There are particular units in the HND which involve self study and research. Once he finished the HNC, Pierce gave himself a head start on the HND by using the summer holidays to complete these units.
“I think the main thing is to make sure you are using your allocated time effectively” he comments. “Setting yourself targets for when you want to complete assignments and taking advantage of the half terms to complete work is productive. The pandemic hasn’t affected me too much as the content for each course is uploaded on to Moodle and the tutors are very responsive and easy to get a hold of. If I had any questions regarding coursework I knew that my tutor was only an email or phone call away and we could work towards resolving the issue.”
Pierce will be continuing at the College in September to study on a top up degree.
