Ben Breakell
I always liked maths and physics, I was practical and I liked technology, but I never knew that design or product engineering was a viable career option. When we bought our first Dyson vacuum cleaner I was really excited about the technology, and in the box was a leaflet for the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London. This really interested me and so I looked it up online. And while Googling it, I found The Dyson Institute. My sister encouraged me to apply, because she thought it was a great opportunity to get paid while studying for a degree apprenticeship.
At one of the rounds of admissions, Matt Wilson (Director, The Dyson Institute) spoke to us, and he held up an old Nokia phone and old laptop. He said, “A recruitment consultant asked me what attracted me to Dyson if I wasn't getting given a new phone or a laptop, but I said that working on real, exciting products and getting to contribute directly to the business was all I needed.” Hearing that from Matt, I realised that that was what I valued too, and it helped me to pick The Dyson Institute.
For the first two years we rotated through different Global engineering teams and when it came time to pick a team for the third and fourth year, I hadn’t found one that worked for me. One evening I went to Basketball club after work, and got speaking with one of my friends there, he suggested I join his team in New Concepts, and after a coffee and a meeting with the team I realised it was a great place to work, and was going to be a great fit for me. It made me really see that it’s the people who make Dyson what it is, a culture of ‘if you can help someone, help them.’ And that moment solidified that to me. Now having been in that team for two years, I feel like I’ve not only learnt how to be a good design engineer, they also taught me how to learn, how to be adaptable, how to pick things up in a workplace environment. I’m really excited to find a new team where I can take all of the skills, practices and experience I have into a full-time role at Dyson.
I am really excited to be graduating, it feels like such a big deal, with us being the first ever students to make it through the course. I get the sense that all of the teams are behind us, and proud of us. The 33 of us have gotten to know each other well, and so it’s going to be a fun future together.
I would tell new students to keep learning, the moment you think you know everything, is the moment you stop learning. Always keep that curiosity and hunger for learning alive, be committed to continuously developing, not only in your degree, but also at work, and the skills outside of that. You’re never going to be the best at everything, but you can be focused on growth.