Water Engineer
Halcrow - Cardiff

Nariba G

00:00:03 My name is Nariba G, and I’m a Graduate Water Engineer. I work in water management, in water drainage – flooding, water quality issues. I mainly do assessments before construction when you have design, in the areas of flood risk management and flood defences.

00:00:23 What I enjoy about my job is the variety of work. Projects can be quite small, or they can extend to quite large schemes like worth multi-million dollars – pounds, even!

00:00:38 When I graduated from University I came straight to Halcrow, I was quite fortunate. I’ve always worked in water engineering. I think it’s something I was always interested in, from the time I was at University, so I was quite fortunate to start work straightaway in the area I wanted.

00:00:54 At University I did my degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering. I studied for four years at Cardiff University. To be honest the UK was a bit of a last minute choice, it wasn’t actually number one on my list. I applied to – I thought of applying to places in Canada, America, in the Caribbean – where I’m from – and also in the UK. But I was very impressed with the information that I got from the Universities here, and particularly Cardiff University.

00:01:27 When I came, my Dad came with me to help me settle, so that was a really big help. When I came it was the middle of September, and it was lovely warm weather, and I thought – ooh, this is really nice. Shortly after my Dad, left the rain started. It was a really different experience, ‘cause I came on my own, I didn’t have any family nearby, so I really was a bit like a fish out of water. But it was actually a lot less daunting than I thought it was going to be.

00:01:57 I thought it was going to be quite challenging being one of the few females on the course, but I think one of the things I’ve realised is that people respect you for what you know, and they don’t judge you for who you are. So it didn’t matter whether I was a woman, or whether I was from Barbados, you know, I just blended in as a student.

00:02:16 We actually had careers throughout my school, and there was a female Civil Engineer there. And it was just really interesting, ‘cause I’d never considered engineering prior to that. But I think just from what she’d said, and the type of career that she had progressed in, and gone into, that really piqued my interest.

00:02:37 I think my Mum’s definitely been a great inspiration for me. She’s a very strong woman, and she’s had to go through many challenges, and she’s always come through almost like a shining beacon. And, you know, she’s my stability. I think my Dad was quite an inspiration as well, because he also went away to study in a place where he had no-one. I think it runs in our family, it must be the crazy genes. But yeah, he was definitely an inspiration for me to come here.

00:03:06 One of the things I’m quite interested in, is working with a charity in, say, an underdeveloped country. To make a difference really. The other reason is that I’m a Christian, and for me part of being a Christian is being able to help people. It’s like you have a higher calling, you have a higher reason for doing what you’re doing, and you realise that the world doesn’t revolve around you. So I think because of that I just want to, you know, give back.

00:03:37 In terms of short-term goals, I hope to get Chartered in the next few years. Once I’m Chartered, I guess the world’s my oyster. I’m not really sure exactly where I see myself in, say, ten years’ time, because there are so many different avenues to go into, so many different areas to expand into. So I guess I’ll just wait and see.

ENDS