Ricki Tura MEng Electronic and Electrical Engineering with Industrial Studies, 2020

Design Engineer at Mentor Graphics (prev. UltraSoC Technologies)

Studying Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Southampton has been invaluable. The range and depth of content in addition to the School's leading facilities has made it easy to thrive.

I chose Southampton for many reasons, one of which being the quality of its teaching facilities.

My greatest achievement of my student career has been winning the 2018 UKESF Scholar of the Year Award at the TechWorks Awards Ceremony. I received the award in front of hundreds of key figures in the electronics industry and was an invaluable networking opportunity.

I was told about the UKESF scholarship when I took part in an ECS Southampton summer school during my A-Levels and also during the first few weeks at Southampton as an undergraduate. I think it is a fantastic program that helps to connect electronic engineering students to companies in the sector. Southampton has been very successful in terms of the number of students that have a UKESF scholarship and I think this is directly related to the amount of awareness that is spread about the program in addition to the support offered by current students who already have a scholarship.

I learnt a lot of "real world" skills through my scholarship, particularly the logistics involved with relocating to a new area each summer to take part in summer internships. Having to find a place to live, a commuting option to work, and establishing a new network are all things that you can only gain from experience and having to overcome this alongside an internship has been invaluable for increasing my job mobility. In addition to this I also learnt a lot of technical skills. During my internships with UltraSoC I developed a skill set covering a variety of programming languages such as Python, SystemVerilog, UVM, Perl, HTML, XSLT, Bash, and more.

Studying in Southampton (for me at least) is intense but enjoyable. In the first two years of my integrated Masters course I had a lot of lectures and laboratory sessions which transitioned into more independent project work and research in my third year and final year.

I chose Southampton for many reasons, one of which being the quality of its teaching facilities within the department of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS). The facilities are always being invested in, the multiple overhauls to the teaching labs and project spaces I've seen during my time here is testament to that.

My time at Southampton helped me to become more independent and aware of managing my time. There is so much for me to learn in my course which I wanted to balance alongside the societies and sports teams that I'm part of. There's such a wide range of opportunities available and they're a great way to switch off and spend time outside of your course. Seeing all of this through has made me into a person who is confident that they can do everything that they want to do.

I enjoyed most the opportunities that came through as a result of the scholarship. Through my internships I've created an invaluable network of people in the industry, and I was even offered a graduate job offer from my sponsoring company! It's given me a sense of stability during my course knowing that I didn't have to worry about job applications and interviews.

My ambitions for the future include expanding my skill set as an engineer, pushing towards becoming a Chartered Engineer, and travelling the world through being involved in the global electronics industry.