ENGINEERING undergraduates at La Trobe will soon have the opportunity to get hands-on work experience in a new honours program which aims to build a brighter future for Bendigo and its students.
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Greater Bendigo’s city futures director Stan Liacos described the new course as a “coup” for Bendigo.
“Every regional city is thirsty for more, quality engineers – that's why we've worked so hard with La Trobe to help establish a new base engineering degree,” Mr Liacos said.
La Trobe lecturer and project manager at the School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Eddie Custovic, said the six-month, $10,000 industry work placement was designed to produce multi-disciplinary graduates.
“The industry is changing rapidly and the problems that engineers have to solve today don’t often require one particular discipline,” Mr Custovic said.
Speaking at the Bendigo airport on Thursday, Mr Custovic said construction of the new runway was a prime example of the kind of projects on which Bendigo-based students would be gaining experience.
“Bendigo is an expanding hub of Central Victoria and this new degree is looking to cater to small- to medium-enterprises which require engineers with multi-disciplinary approach to solving problems,” he said.
“On this runway you'll have electrical, civil, structural, road design and geotechnical engineers – having one engineer who understands about a lot of these disciples certainly makes you very, very useful in any organisation.”
First year engineering student, Nicholas Cherry, said he would love a chance to gain experience building the runway.
“It would be such a big thing for Bendigo in terms of the growth of the city, it’s been needed for a while and it'd definitely be appreciated and would help emergency services,” he said.
“Making a difference in communities is why I got involved in engineering, especially regional communities... I’m from Bendigo, so it’s good to see it developing and I’d like to be a part of that.”
The new Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) course is now taking enrollments for 2016. For more head to the Open Day on August 16.
