“I love engineering and I love music and audio so I feel very lucky to be able to have found a job that combines the two.”
Why did you choose to study at Salford?
Salford has a great reputation for its acoustics course. The modules all looked very interesting and aimed at making you as employable as possible in the acoustics/audio industry. The university also seemed to have close links with industry which is ideal for finding placement or graduate roles. I also lacked maths and physics qualifications so the foundation year was perfect to get me up to speed
What made you want to study your course?
Before university my background was in music, live events, and live sound engineering. I enjoyed working in that industry but was always intrigued about what was going on with audio equipment and acoustics at a deeper level. I spent a lot of time tinkering with sound systems when I was younger but have always been curious about the theory. When COVID hit and the live events industry came to a halt, I started thinking more about how I could transfer my passion and interest in audio into a more academic setting. Studying acoustics at Salford was definitely the right decision!
How did you learn on your course?
The course consisted of a lot of practical elements in the labs ranging from electronics tutorials, acoustics labs, and computer tutorials where we learn programming skills and write scripts to solve real world acoustics/audio problems. I really enjoyed the variety that the course brought from learning the theory of the subject in lectures to then being able to apply that theory in programming tutorials or in the labs. My favourite aspect of the course was definitely my final year project. It was great to be able to select my own topic of research that I’m interested in and spend the best part of a year working on it – it was cool being able to do actual research that perhaps hadn’t been explored before and gaining some very valuable insight and results on the subject.
Did you do a placement as part of your course?
I did a placement at ElectroVoice in Minnesota, USA for a year. They are a company that design and manufacture speakers and audio equipment mainly aimed towards the live events market. My role was an electroacoustic engineering intern so was tasked with helping in all areas of loudspeaker engineering, design, and development. It was an amazing experience to be able to work with the engineering team. I developed so many skills such as electronics, woodwork, acoustic measurement, CAD, critical listening just to name a few. I wasn’t just a spare part but had proper input on the products that we were developing – it’s amazing to see products being released to the public that you have helped develop. The placement also allowed me to travel and make friends and contacts around the world that I am still in touch with today. I would highly recommend a placement year to any future students – I think it is the most valuable part of my university experience that has helped me in my in my final year of university and my search for graduate work in the industry.
Tell us a bit about your career journey since you graduated.
Since graduating I started working at an environmental acoustic consultancy for 5 months or so. This didn’t really align with my interest in the audio side of acoustics, but the graduate job market in audio is not great right now. However, with an acoustics degree you can almost walk into a consultancy after university – there are countless graduate acoustics jobs going.
Thankfully I didn’t give up with the job market and found an R&D job at PMC which I started in the new year. PMC are a company that design and manufacture very high end speakers and amplifiers primarily for recording studios and for home use. The job has been amazing so far and a few weeks in I have learned countless new skills and developed plenty of existing skills and theory from my course and placement. Specific modules that have come in very handy for my job are the loudspeaker design module where we covered all aspects of loudspeaker design theory, and the computer simulation module where we learned how to use COMSOL to model and simulate various acoustics phenomenon. The content learnt via my course and placement not only help me in my day to day work, but in the interview process I felt as if I had a wealth of relevant experiences to discuss from software and theory I had learnt on my course, to specific design projects I had been apart of.
What advice would you give to someone thinking of studying here?
Take any opportunity you can such as placements, volunteering, etc. It will help immensly when you finish university and you may even find work from taking these oppurtunities. Also make the most of the university software licenses such as comsol, solidworks, matlab – knowing how to use these pieces of software is very valuable to companies when you’re looking for work and you will miss them when you graduate and can no longer access them.
What did you think of the facilities and equipment? Was there anything you particularly enjoyed using?
The acoustic labs were great. World class anechoic chambers were great fun to work. I also enjoyed using the electronics facilities to work on personal projects.