Matt Durrant, Graduate Water Engineer, Christchurch
University attended: University of Canterbury
Degree qualification: Bachelor of Engineering (with 1st class Hons) in Natural Resources Engineering
Year of graduation: 2020
A day in the life:
7:20 am
It’s wake up time Matt – quick shower, Weet-Bix (breakfast of champions), grab my lunch (always made the night before) then out the door and on my bike by 7:50am.
8:10 am
Arrive at work after a nice commute through Hagley Park. We hot desk so I’ve chosen myself a sit/stand desk. Always start the day standing to flex how much I care about my posture.
8:20 am
First order of business is making a coffee using our boujee barista coffee machine. I’m 95% sure this thing keeps the office running as smoothly as it does. Now onto work – check emails and my calendar.
8:30 am
Grab a pool vehicle, always the Hilux, and head off to site. At the moment, I’m monitoring the construction of a water supply pipe upgrade on the Port Hills. They’re doing a cut in to an existing watermain today so it’s all systems go. Satisfied with how the work is going – I head back to the office to complete my site inspection report.
11:00 am
The report is complete and its time to catch up with the water team for our weekly meeting. We discuss health and safety concerns, workload, and my colleague shares some of the lessons learnt from a project she’s been working on recently.
11:45 am
Time for another coffee, you deserve it. Now to get cracking into some design work. I’m using 12d modelling software to rework some of the stormwater network in Dunedin to allow a number of intersections to be reconfigured. I’m almost ready to give my design for review. But now, it’s lunch time.
12:30 pm
Our office is right beside Avon River, so I pop out with my lunch (left over frittata) and a couple of other grads to eat lunch by the river. Great to hear what everyone else is keeping busy with.
1:00 pm
Continuing that design work – few clashes with existing services to sort out. Headphones on, music humming, cup of English breakfast – it’s focus time.
4:30 pm
A catch up with engineers from the AECOM Perth office about a highway upgrade alliance project I’m about to start work on. I’m going to be designing the road drainage, so I’ll be working closely with the geometric designer – we have these meetings later in the day, as its only 11:30am over in Perth.
5:15 pm
Meeting is just wrapping up, and just in time too, as I’m heading back up the Port Hills. This time to run, not to look at pipes. My running group meets at 6:15 every week for a trail run – great motivation to get out and about after work.
7:30 pm
It’s the last run of the month so we head for beers & chips at a local pub. I’ve got to put back on those calories somehow!
8:30 pm
One of my lovely flatmates has cooked dinner so I crack into that while we watch some Peaky Blinders.
10:30 pm
Two episodes is probably enough and its time for bed. The obligatory scroll through social media to see what every man and his dog has been up to today.
11:00 pm
Okay that’s enough mate – bedtime. Back to the grind tomorrow.