Back to school - Electrical Engineering

I’ve been meaning to write this blog for a while now, but my brain has felt too full of transistor bias curves, matrices, power factors and torque equations…. because I’ve taken the (possibly crazy) decision to go back to college a day a week to study for an HNC in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

Since September, Monday mornings have seen me packing my school bag, taking a deep breath, cycling or busing across Plymouth, and swiping my student card to access the classrooms at Plymouth City College.

I’m in a class of about 25, with the others all already employed as engineers and being sent along by their employers to add to their existing qualifications. I’d expected the classroom to be full of young men, and to some extent this is the case, but I’m not the oldest, and there are three of us girls… not that it should matter, but somehow it does.

On the 2nd week, in three separate conversations with fellow students & lecturers, I mentioned that I was an artist and had chosen to be there… they were polite but puzzled… 6 months in I feel more of a part of things, but still frequently feel like the odd one out… but sometimes it’s good to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones, right?

I often feel like I’m learning a new language, one that everyone else in the class is already fluent in, but at others I have felt that my more creative brain ‘gets’ a concept ahead of others.

So why am I doing this?

I really struggle to answer this question. Here are a few of my thoughts:

I have an ‘Itchy Brain’.

Listening to radio 4 the other day I heard an interviewee describe themselves as having ‘An Itchy Brain’… a desire to learn more, to better understand the world around them. I enjoy learning new things. Some days I love being a student again, some days I really struggle.

I want to understand.

Our modern-day lives depend massively on technology and the energy needed to power it. Tech is developing at an incredible rate, I doubt that I will even begin to understand a fraction of the systems that I interact with on a daily basis… but I think it’s useful to have some grasp of how it works, and the potential there is for using that tech towards a better world.

I want to make more Art with Energy!

Art and Energy started by making energy artworks - artworks that generate electricity (If you haven’t seen our Solar Artworks then I recommend a look here). We enjoy introducing a bit of techy magic into all of our projects, for example the tardigrade telephone. I love a challenge like this, but I find myself struggling to understand the tech and without an grasp of the basics it’s difficult to understand the potential. This course is leading to so many ideas… watch this space!

To inspire others.

I find myself hesitating to type this one - it feels a bit big headed… but it’s true. At the Dazzle illumination festival in Devonport in February 2025 we shared out We are All Connected Artwork, and I was struck by how this interactive artwork invited people to ask ‘but how does it work?’. The response of one visitor particularly sticks in my mind.

At school I was always encouraged to focus on the arts because ‘that’s what you’re good at’ but I wish I’d paid more attention to the sciences too. I’m excited to use my new-found knowledge in a creative way to make people smile, to be playful, to connect wit the world in a new way.

“Poppie says that she is more interested in physics now... she has been inspired to pay more attention in school after playing with We Are All Connected”