Engineering
Me and My Job | Career Focus

Storming a male bastion
Catherine Foley talks to Anne McElligott.

The building site on South King Street in Dublin city centre is a hive of activity. Shovels and trowels are being wielded at a ferocious rate. The footpath by the Gaiety Theatre, just around the corner from Grafton Street, is being widened. The noise is deafening as cars and shoppers go by in the midafternoon rush. This is Anne McElligott's world. As a resident engineer in the roads construction section of Dublin Corporation, she is responsible for monitoring and overseeing work at the construction site. She'll regularly be seen measuring and taking readings to make sure everything is in accordance with specifications.

Today, she's easily recognisable in her yellow allweather jacket and all purpose boots as she makes her way through the piles of sand and the heavy concrete bricks. Civil engineers wear protective and high-visibility clothing as well as safety boots with steel capped toes. McElligott leaves her portable cabin around the corner on Chatham Row, carrying the tools of her trade under her arm - a spirit level, tripod and staff which is ruled and used for measuring heights. "It's lovely work," she says, especially in summertime when the weather is warm and, "the city centre is so vibrant. In the winter-time, it's very cold. It's raining. You're outside.

"As a career I think it's good. There's a lot of diversity. You can choose to work in different areas. There are good prospects at present too.

"There's a degree of satisfaction when the work is complete. You can see the fruits of your labour. You can see the money being spent on road improvements." Inside the cabin, which is McElligiott's office, the set-up is business-like. There's a goodsized desk in one corner; about half a dozen chairs ranged about the room; a set of deep shelves packed with folders, maps and lever arch files and, pinned up all along the walls, are plans and drawings of the number of streets that close to South King Street.

McElligott graduated from Trinity College Dublin just two years ago. Within a month she was working for Dublin City Corporation in its traffic section. She was then transferred to its roads improvement section. "It's important as an engineer to get experience," she explains. "You have to have five years experience before you are eligible to become a chartered engineer."

Looking back on her school days, she says she was always interested in maths. She sat her Leaving Cert in St David's Secondary School in Greystones, Co Wicklow, in 1983. The next year she went to Ringsend Technical College, Dublin, to repeat and then she went to TCD to study maths. She decided to leave after one year. For the next nine years she worked in the hotel and catering industry, working her way up from waitress to supervisor to manager. She worked as a branch department manager in Bewley's Café on Westmoreland Street. However, at the back of her mind, she did think she would go back to university. The key was "to pick the right time", she says. The birth of her daughter, Dara, was the turning point.

She did a preliminary engineering course at DIT Bolton Street and then applied to Trinity to study engineering. Going back to study was "a huge shock to the system", she says. "You feel so out of touch."

She chose TCD largely because it had a creche. She was able to bring her daughter to college with her and leave her at the crèche. McElligott was one of three mature students out of a class of 165 people in the first year of Trinity's engineering degree programme. "The first year was difficult; I did feel I was different," she says. There were about 20 girls in the group. But in the end, "it didn't seem to matter" that she was older. "We all had common interests any way - exams, no money. Everybody was in the same position.

"I choose civil because of the outdoor aspect," she says. She also liked the subjects in civil engineering. Today, she says she's delighted that she went back to college. This year, she'll go back to study for a master's degree in engineering. Dublin Corporation has a number of incentives that encourage its engineers to on to further study.

CAREER FOCUS: Civil engineering
Average salary for a civil engineer is €22,855 (£18,000) per annum rising to over €53,329 (£42,000) by the age of 30, according to the Institute of Engineers of Ireland.

Website: It's worth keeping an eye on the Institute of Engineers of Ireland's website at www.iei.ie/steps , in order to check details of its upcoming (Schools Technology and Engineering Programme for Skills), which will take place this year in November. This will involve a series of on-site visits to engineering companies throughout the country, including Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Dublin and Galway. Earlier this year, over 500 students visited over 25 engineering companies through the programme.

Colleges: The IEI lists 15 different third-level colleges which offer engineering courses: Athlone IT has two cert courses; Carlow IT has two cert courses; Cork IT has two cert courses; DIT Bolton Street has one degree and one cert course; TCD has one degree course; UCD has one degree course; NUI Galway has two degree courses; Dundalk IT has two cert courses; Galway-Mayo IT has one degree course and three cert courses; Letterkenny IT has two cert courses; Limerick IT has two cert courses; Sligo IT has two cert courses; Tralee IT has two cert courses; Waterford IT has one cert course and UCC has one degree course.

Numbers: There are 17,000 engineers registered with the IEI, of which 38 per cent are civil engineers. Some 7 per cent of the total are women.