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How would you describe Materials Engineering to someone who knows nothing about it?

Materials Engineering is all about understanding what things around us of are made of and how we can produce things out of different materials so that they have different properties.

Materials Engineering can involve working on things in a very theoretical way, for example, carrying out tests to see how strong a material is in a laboratory. However, it can also be very practical, for example, working in a huge production plant manufacturing materials from raw products. Materials Engineering also takes you from the very small, such as nano-technology, to the very big, such as producing thousands of tons of steel a week in a blast furnace.

It is a very broad field – once you have studied the fundamental theory there are lots of different possibilities in terms of a career.