• Question: Does engineering ever become stressful? If so how do you calm yourself down?

    Asked by Lolly to Aisling, Cara, Dino, Graham, Patrick on 7 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Cara O'Brien

      Cara O'Brien answered on 7 Mar 2018:


      Yes it can definitely be stressful when you have a lot of work and not a lot of time before it has to be done. I think a great way to calm down is to just take a break and go exercise. It always helps me clear my head.

    • Photo: Aisling Lee

      Aisling Lee answered on 7 Mar 2018:


      Absolutely, anything worth doing will be tough and anything that is tough will be stressful.
      The best thing is to take a break, step away and get some air. Meet up with friends to chat about something nothing to do with your work, play sports, play video games anything really.
      It also helps to talk to people who understand what you’re doing and thus they might be able to help you out with something you might not have known or thought of.

    • Photo: Graham Cullen

      Graham Cullen answered on 9 Mar 2018:


      Definitely, especially if you are working to a tight deadline. One good thing about my job is that the work is so varied so if I get stuck on something difficult, then I can go and work on something else a little less stressful for a while. One thing about working as an engineer is that the job requires a lot of thinking and you can’t switch that off, so often I will think up a solution over the weekend while i’m out for a walk, or I might be watching tv show or reading something that might trigger a solution. So it is best to take a break. Some times that’s not possible when there are deadlines coming up, so then you can ask for help, or just remove the problem entirely by simplifying the design or by trying an entirely different approach.

Comments