Why I love engineering: Dan Levett

Dan Levett, 23, is a project manager at GSK Maidenhead. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nottingham and Industrial Project Management at the University of Birmingham. Dan shared with us why he became an engineer and what he loves about the profession.

As a child, I was always constructing cars, planes, houses etc from Lego and K’NEX. From there I moved onto ‘fixing’ my Mum’s kitchen appliances, DIY and building go-karts with my friends. I was always wanting to know how and why things work the way they do. At school, I also enjoyed Physics and Maths but didn’t see the point of a lot of it and why it was useful. When deciding what A-levels and career I wanted to do, I came across Mechanical Engineering. To me, it was a no brainer, engineering was the career for me where I could use my Maths and Physics and apply it to real-life problems.

I became an engineer because I love to fix things, solve problems and find out why things work. Every day when I walk into work I know there will be a new problem to solve or a different machine to fix. The satisfaction I get by using my engineering skills to solve problems is why I get out of bed in the morning. Knowing that what I do makes a difference within my factory and to the end-user is so fulfilling.

My ambition is to continue to gain knowledge so I can take on bigger and more challenging problems. I want to continue to use my skills to make a difference by continuously improving the way we engineer things. In the short term, I plan to get my engineering chartership.