Author: Mohamed Nawfal (article originally taken from uniclues.com)
Course: xxx
The study of environmental engineering is about engineering structures that are environmentally sustainable. In Singapore’s context, one area we struggle to reach self-sufficiency would be water. As such, the environmental engineering degree tends to focus a lot on wastewater management. For this, students are required to take a lot of biology and chemistry classes.
I knew that I liked geography a lot in secondary school. However, I did not take it in JC as I thought it was too content-heavy. When applying for my university courses, I knew I wanted to do something related to geography. Environmental engineering seemed like the more practical choice compared to geography at that time because I still wanted a degree where I could pick up some hard skills and I was quite skeptical of the job opportunities available to geography majors.
Another option for geography lovers would be the Asian School of the Environment at NTU which prides itself on the field trips the school organises. It is more theory-based compared to environmental engineering. I did not know about this school when I was applying but I wouldn’t have met the grade requirement anyways. Moreover, I have spoken to people from this school and they said they should’ve taken environmental engineering because they face difficulties when applying for jobs, partly because it is a very new programme.
All in all, even though environmental engineering didn’t really live up to my expectations, I have managed to participate in external programmes which has made my life in university quite worthwhile. I will be sharing more about these programmes down below.
When I was applying for university, I did not really think about how well I would do. I knew I didn’t want to pursue any other degrees so I just went for it!
Although engineering courses tend to have a huge gender mismatch, in environmental engineering, there are at least as many females as males. However, I still feel a bit out of place and anxious whenever someone asks me what I am studying. When I mention that I am from engineering, people often look puzzled. They can’t wrap their head around the idea of a girl doing engineering. The stigma of girls doing engineering is deeply entrenched in our society and I guess you just have to persevere through this public perception if you choose to do engineering as a girl.
The course is somewhat similar. However, one main difference I have heard is that while NTU students are forced to take civil engineering modules, NUS students are at liberty to choose if they want to take civil engineering modules. This is good as civil engineering modules at NTU are known for pulling down students’ GPAs. However, an NUS student who focuses solely on environmental engineering modules will be disadvantaged as companies look for students with civil engineering background so that they can work on building sustainable structures.
During the first year, we take some foundational engineering modules together with the other engineering students. We pick up subjects like computing, engineering mathematics, biology and environmental chemistry.
As I mentioned, the school focuses a lot on water treatment. One major topic would be Active, Beautiful and Clean Waters, or ABC Waters for short. Under this, the school teaches us about water catchment and how water catchment could be integrated with greenery. However, I soon found out during my internship that whatever we learnt in school is not really applicable in the real world.
I would say that the curriculum is quite shallow and does not really get deep into the study of environmental engineering. However, I did external projects which immensely helped to further my understanding of sustainability. I will talk more about the external projects here.
We have lectures in small lecture halls since our cohort size is relatively small (slightly below 50). At environmental engineering lectures, we learn about the different filter systems and the different methods of filtration. There are a lot of steps to water treatment such as filtration, sedimentation, coagulation etc. There will be modules focusing on each of these steps. We learn about traditional methods used in the past and modern solutions to the water problem as well.
We also have lab sessions for both our environmental engineering modules and civil engineering modules, which are held separately. For the former, we have worked with waste water and performed tests on them to see the effects of certain chemicals. It can be quite fascinating to watch dirt in water coagulate when some chemical is added to it! For another experiment, we had to test the air quality at different locations, where we get to use specialised equipment. For civil engineering, on one occasion, we had to test the strength of various blocks of concrete. These are the kind of experiments we do in school.
“What’s taught in school is very theory-based and lacks application-based training.”
I have participated in two projects outside of school. Both of them were on environmental sustainability. You can find these external projects by either googling for them or looking through emails from your school. My school usually floods people with information on these kinds of projects and they are often overlooked by students.
The first one was by Ecosperity. For this project, we had to come up with ways for companies to become more environmentally sustainable and the 3 companies given to us were Marina Bay Sands, IKEA, and a plastics company.
The second one was the Green Mark challenge which was organised by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA). For the competition, we were given a case study on Sim Lim Square (SLS). SLS is a very old and run-down building and they wanted us to propose ideas to improve its Green Mark rating. The BCA Green Mark Scheme was launched in January 2005 as an initiative to drive Singapore’s construction industry towards more environment-friendly buildings. Through this programme, I got to know one of the judges of the competition who is the CEO at one of the local companies which make buildings more sustainable. One thing that was interesting was that his suit was made out of plastic bottles!
I definitely have picked up more about environmental sustainability from these external projects than I have from school. These projects make you step out of your comfort zone as well. I remember how I had take a video on why I wanted to join the projects. Moreover, these events are attended by people from all over the world which allows participants to network with people from the same industry. However, slots for these external projects are limited and unfortunately, these opportunities are offered mostly to NUS students since the events are mostly organised by NUS.
Engineering teaches you how to use industry-specific programmes like AutoCAD and Matlab. These are designing software which you will probably use a lot at your workplace. We have also been taught a bit of computing as well, such as basic C language. Apart from this, I have taken external Python courses at SMU, which were fully subsidised by SkillsFuture. This saved me about $2200 so you should take advantage of this while you are in university to expand your portfolio!
It is quite hard to get internships in Year 1 and Year 2 for engineering since we learn the important topics in Year 3. Year 1 and Year 2 is spent taking basic mods like engineering mathematics.
In Year 3, I did my internship at a civil engineering consulting firm called ECAS Consultants. The scope of my internship was mainly focused on ABC Waters. The objective of ABC Waters is to innovate water collection. Instead of using traditional canals to collect water, environmental engineers try to use grass patches to cover up water catchment areas. These water catchment areas are made up of the drainage layer, filtration layer and transition layer. As a consulting firm, ECAS Consultants ensure that these filtration structures work optimally and do not collapse. For this, they calculate the amount of rainfall and the rate of flow of rainwater. With that, the consultants decide on the sizes of the pipes to use. Pipes too small would cause flooding and pipes too big would rake up additional expenses. These pipes then channel stored water to central public catchment areas where they are purified for consumption.
Overall, my internship experience was very eye-opening as I wasn’t expecting superiors to be so mean and harsh on interns. I did not expect the office environment to be so toxic. I also learned that there are also a lot of stakeholders engineers interact with, namely architects, main contractors, sub-contractors, and builders. Hence, a mistake by any one of them means that the consultant has to revise his calculations for the changes in the design.
I would say that the majority go into either environmental engineering and civil engineering. The main difference between a civil engineering consultant and an environmental engineering consultant is that the former spends his time designing buildings and bridges whereas the latter focuses on drainage systems and bio-ponds.
There is a demand for environmental engineers to fill up specific roles at every firm. Even Big 4 firms like Ernst & Young hire environmental engineers to do environmental sustainability reports.
If you are looking to focus on sustainability, you might want to look at private companies as opposed to governmental organisations. On one hand, governmental organisations like NEA, PUB, Singapore Green Building Council, and Ministry of Water tend to focus a lot on water treatment. On the other hand, private sector companies, like IKEA, have sustainability departments that focus on making their supply chain more environmentally friendly. Another example would be MBS, which works with environmental engineers to find solutions to save electricity at their hotels by programming the rooms such that all appliances turn off automatically when guests leave the room. Personally, I see myself going into the private sector as I am more interested in working on sustainability projects.
I see myself working on making the supply chain of companies more sustainable. However, I am still exploring my interests but I don’t see myself doing anything other than sustainability-related jobs for now. This industry is quite innovative and it never fails to fascinate me. For example, there is this Chinese firm that specialises in finding alternative uses for waste gathered from water treatment. I have heard that they have managed to manufacture furniture from waste!
The NTU Environmental Engineering cohort is quite small so you will get to know almost every student. You will definitely get to know most of them by just going for lectures. I would recommend you to go for the camp as well, albeit it is a combined camp for Maritime, Civil and Environmental Engineering. The people here are very helpful as well! The professors are very knowledgeable and passionate about environmental engineering. However, most of the lecturers are from China so it is quite hard to grasp their accent but I believe you can definitely learn a lot if you make the effort to pay attention to what they are saying.
You really have to consider what you’re interested in because, for me, it’s kind of different from what I wanted to learn. Now, it feels like I am restricted to going into wastewater management because that is what the bulk of my degree is about. I find wastewater treatment boring and would rather go into environmental sustainability instead. However, all hope is not lost as I have picked up the industry-relevant experience from external projects, which I encourage everyone to participate in to broaden your horizons.
There are also other factors my friends and I wish we had considered before applying for engineering. One of which is the competitiveness within the course. Some of my friends took up EEE (Electricity and Electronics Engineering) because it was the easiest to get into. However, they are struggling now as there are a lot of Chinese scholars in the course who consistently top the class. Another factor to consider would be if your course allows you to get the Professional Engineer license. This license is awarded only to certain industries like Civil Engineering. Unfortunately, environmental engineers aren’t awarded this license.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the interviewees and do not reflect the official policy or position of any institution. They are also not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, class, individual or organisation.
The information contained in this website is intended to provide general guidance only. It should not be relied upon as professional advice and does not 100% guarantee admission into any course.
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