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Nathan Derringer

PDP2 Activity 12 - Short/Long term goals

Monday, 3 Apr 2017, 20:20
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Edited by Nathan Derringer, Monday, 3 Apr 2017, 20:20

Things i want to achieve in the long term:

  • Financial security for my family
  • Happy children
  • Own a bigger house with lots of space for the kids
  • Become senior engineer/ team leader

Things i want to achieve in the short team:

  • a degree through the OU
  • achieve a minimum of IEng if not MEng
  • Get my children settled in primary school
Tags: pdp2, goals, career development, work/life balance
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Nathan Derringer

PDP2 - Activity 8 - UK-SPEC

Tuesday, 28 Mar 2017, 11:21
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Edited by Nathan Derringer, Tuesday, 28 Mar 2017, 13:49

Chosen professional engineering grade:

  • IEng

My justification for choosing this grade:

  • I have been an engineer for 3 years now and an apprentice/technician for 5/6 years before that. I currently have an apprentice under me who i am showing the ropes/passing on technical knowledge. I also do project work for my company/OFCOM in the form of commissioning new DAB services for the BBC and other more local services.

After comparing what I can do with UK-SPEC, are there any key areas that I seem to be falling short in?

  • One main area i fall short on is "C2" under the IEng competencies. This item is "Manage tasks, people and resources to plan and budget.". I am weak in this area as we have a separate design/projects teams in my company who organise a lot of the project work. I would then carry out the project according to what has been planned. The same goes for "B2".

How can I address these gaps in knowledge, skills and experience?

  • It is difficult for me at this stage in my career, in a big company, to get heavily involved in the design process. However what i can do is provide feedback to the project/design teams when any issues are found when working on projects. My feedback to the design/projects teams will then hopefully improve the efficiency of the work and help to resolve any technical issues found when working on the project.  


Tags: career development, ieng, pdp2, t176
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Nathan Derringer

PDP2: Activity 5

Monday, 27 Mar 2017, 20:23
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I currently work in broadcast engineering, fixing and repairing industrial equipment associated with TV and radio broadcast across the UK.

Examples of my career development so far:

  • Passing my initial apprenticeship - 2 years of day release at University with the rest of the time learning on the job. 
  • Passing my companies internal apprenticeship - After the 2 initial years, i had 2 more years of on the job working/studying which was completed with a day of theory and practical tests/exams, failing would mean losing the job.
  • Meeting the criteria to enable me to join the teams "on-call rota" which meant lone working with potentially dangerous equipment.
  • After my annual reviews at work, my manager and I agreed goals for me to hit to get a promotion from Broadcast Technician to Broadcast Engineer. After a year or so of working at it i achieved this goal and was promoted to Engineer.
Tags: career development, pdp2
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