Graemie Watt

Graemie Watt enjoyed his College experience so much that 9 years after leaving he returned as a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering.

He went straight from school to College to study Mechanical Engineering at College.
He said, “I knew this is what I wanted to do as I seemed to be good at it! I attended a lot of the engineering showcase nights the College put on at the time and I managed to meet lots of the lecturers and spoke to the prospective employers who advised me of the different routes I could take to enter industry.”

Graemie admits that sometimes things don’t go quite to plan. “I had my eye on the Shell Engineering Scheme but unfortunately I didn’t have my Maths so it was a case of working my way up through the various levels to get the qualifications I needed and putting in some extra effort.”

He was at College for four years altogether completing the National Certificate (NC) Mechanical Engineering at SCQF Levels 5 and 6, Performing Engineering Operations: Mechanical at SCQF Level 5 followed by the Shell Engineering Scheme at SCQF Level 7/8.

The Shell Engineering Scheme is a two year sponsored course which comprises of a number of full time qualifications. For Graemie this included a leadership qualification, industry experience and at the time a HND in Mechanical Engineering.

“College helped me get into industry by giving me the skills that I needed – both the theory and especially the practical. I moved onto employment with Weatherford as a trainee Applications Engineer and worked there for almost 9 years. Teaching was always something I was interested in but it was important to me to get industry experience first. I was delighted when the lecturing opportunity came up at NESCol and I am now really enjoying my time back at College but on the other side of the fence!”