Megan Whitbread, Troup Bywaters + Anders

Finalist for the 2017 WISE One to Watch Award

29 September 2017

My STEM career truthfully started as a young child, where I would continuously be intrigued about what things were, how they worked and why they did ‘that’. My own inquisitive nature allowed for me to begin a path in engineering by starting product design and resistant materials for GCSE’s in secondary school which followed to AS levels in Engineering, Physics and Mathematics. I soon realized that I have never been the type to be able to sit in a classroom day in day out and find it enjoyable where I discovered there was no benefit of me being there anymore. I wanted to be able to be productive and actually have something to show for myself, so discovering that there were other routes, such as an apprenticeship, to get me to where I wanted to be was brilliant. I am constantly learning and able to put all of my knowledge to the test every day.

My job title at Troup Bywaters + Anders is a Building Services Design Technician, simplified this means as an engineer I help to bring buildings to life. At TB+A we receive an architects drawing and add services to it, I specialize in the electrical design so my role mainly involves designing lighting layouts for hospitals and figuring out where power is needed in each room. Duties include electrical designs, drawings and calculations to comply with relevant standards to ‘bring buildings to life’. Recently, a partner of the company has entrusted me to redesign the office’s meeting rooms to be able to showcase what we do day to day to our clients.