Punsara De Silva

What is your current job / programme of study?

Completed my first year of Material Science and Engineering at QMUL but now on a gap year trying to explore different options mostly degree apprenticeships!

What A-Levels (or equivalent) did you do?

Maths, Chemistry and Physics.

Why did you chose a career in Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)?

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I chose MSE. I discovered material science (pun intended) when I went to an open day at Imperial and got the opportunity to look at the material science labs, where people were explaining how structure effects the properties of materials. After reading Stuff Matters, I realised material science is was literally everything around me, which I thought was pretty cool. Going to university, solidified my interest for the subject and now I know it is really something I want to pursue. 

What did you enjoy most about your MSE course? (If you didn’t do a MSE course which course did you do and what led to you MSE?)

I’ve only completed my first year so my knowledge is pretty basic but I enjoyed learning about ductile and brittle fracture and how imperfections in solids can affect their properties. Being able to identify which type of fracture has occurred and why from the resulting surface felt pretty cool when I went to MBDA for a Movement to work programme. It was only a tour but looking around and seeing micrographs of the breaking of screws and actually understanding of them and realising the level of detail that goes into designs stem from something as small the tolerances of seemingly less important screws.

What is your research about?

N/A

What is the coolest thing you have done in your career so far?

N/A

What do you see yourself doing in the future?

In the near future: hopefully a becoming a degree apprentice. In the longer term: rich with lots of dogs and cats oh and also a degree in Materials or Mechanical Engineering. 

What is your favourite material (and why)?

Not sure yet! I’ve got to discover a lot more until I make that decision. 

What advice would you give your 16 year old self?

Be open! Whatever you have planned and want to happen now might be completely different to later on! Even if it’s a vague ambition the journey there doesn’t have to be linear and it even might end up being a different end point from what you had planned. 

Links

LinkedIn