I have been studying at Sheffield Hallam University for over 5 years - and what a great 5 years they have been. I being here in 1994 on the BEng Civil Engineering Honors degree. Via a process of hard work, luck and blackmail (OK - not blackmail) I managed to complete the degree and finally ended up with a tantalizingly close to a 1st 2:1 (or as I like to call it, a 1st- 2nd division).

In fact, if it hadn't been for...... No, I won't even go there.

Anyway, if you like hard work, maths, engineering and problem solving then I can thoroughly recommend the BEng civil engineering degree. It will give you a thorough education of Civil Engineering aspects and issues.The staff were extremely professional and helpful and if it will help me get a Ph.D. I will continue to write nice things about them here.

Now I'm continuing my study by doing a Ph.D. broadly entitled 'artificial intelligence in bridge inspection'. I am looking at the application of expert system technology in bridge inspection. I am 9 months into my course which I expect to last at least three years.

The third year of my degree was spent with Mott MacDonald on industrial placement. I fully recommend industrial placement years to students, it provided me with an invaluable insight into the life of an engineer.

I shall stick up on this page pictures of my awards and stuff; not an attempt at self deification of anything, but just to show that if you work hard even someone as inane as me can do well.

The fourth year of the degree, in particular the first semester was a nightmare. Over the 12 weeks of the semester on average we were having to complete around 2 assignments per week. Some of the assignments were over 50 pages thick. This did not leave much time for anything and indeed after the first semester I had forgotten that we are supposed to sleep at night. I suffered from assignment withdrawal syndrome during the Christmas break and had to make up my own assignments just to get a 'fix'.

I thought I would just share that with you.