Borui Chen received three job offers before graduation day — two from aerospace companies in Singapore and one with a prestigious engineering firm in Australia. He credits his Systems Engineering background and in particular a Capstone project for teaching him “a holistic understanding of engineering principles and their real-world applications”.
Seven months into his first job, where he manages maintenance proposals for modification and maintenance of private aircrafts, Borui Chen looks back on his time at The Australian National University (ANU) where he studied his Bachelor of Engineering (Honours), with a Major in Renewable Energy Systems.
“I’m just filled with immense gratitude for the formative years I spent there,” he said. “Each experience, every friend I made, every project I completed, and every professor who guided me contributed significantly to my confidence and readiness to begin my career.”
Borui said his time at the ANU College of Engineering, Computing & Cybernetics (CECC) instilled in him “a keen eye for innovation, a systematic-thinking mindset, and the ability to work effectively with people from diverse backgrounds”, which perfectly prepared him for his current job.
“I feel a profound sense of achievement when I see aircraft arrive at our hangar. And I truly appreciate the unwavering supports from my dear colleagues, team lead, managers and VP in Bombardier”.
From remote learning to remote-operated vehicles
When the global pandemic prevented him from leaving Singapore, he opted to begin his ANU journey by attending classes remotely.
While he missed out on some in-person experiences, he gained skills that would be valuable in a shifting work environment.
“Remote communications are part of most workplaces now, including my current job where we have staff from all over the world,” he said.
Borui had two years of credits from Temasek Polytechnics in Singapore, which meant that he was taking advanced Systems Engineering courses, not introductory classes like most new starters impacted by the pandemic.
In one such course, he helped design a new steering wheel for the ANU Solar Racing team.
“It was exciting to interact with the racing team lead, understand their pain points, and contribute to a meaningful project,” he said.
The pandemic and a truncated timetable put him in a predicament with respect to Capstone, the immersive final year Engineering course where students self-select into teams that work at the direction of industry clients over the course of two semesters. After reading about the various projects underway, he chose to become the seventh member of Team TOTUS.
“TOTUS really stood out to me because it was about semi-autonomous driving,” he said. “It was a really fascinating combination of theory and research, and it would encourage me to think commercially in designing a new technology.”
The other members of the team were in Australia, meeting on campus once a week with their client and visiting truck stop diners to learn about end-user requirements for operating the semi-trailers remotely with the assistance of artificial intelligence. Borui plugged into the design team tasked with creating a remote-control steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedal for a written-off 2014 Ford Focus.
The result was dazzling. Team TOTUS parked the transformed automobile outside the 2022 Capstone Showcase, where they demonstrated its remote operating system. Audience members were offered the opportunity to drive it.
When it was announced that they had won first prize, Borui’s teammates insisted on including him in the celebratory photograph using a live video feed from Singapore.
When he arrived on campus the next semester, he made up for lost time with friends and mentors he had known only through screens. He loved the mountains, lakes, and parks of Canberra.
“Being able to hangout in person allowed me to deepen relationships and I really enjoyed walking around the city and the beautiful campus. It was good just feeling the youthful energy of the place,” he said.
Borui served as team leader for the second iteration of Team TOTUS, which has built on the successes of the first. He worked closely with the client and his new team members and created a comprehensive handover, remaining available for consultation even after his graduation.
Starting the job search
Borui found talking about his Capstone experience particularly helpful when applying for jobs during his final Semesters at ANU.
“I talked a lot about Systems Engineering and Capstone,” he said. “This was the part of the interview that helped them understand that I have both the technical skill and ability to interact with different stakeholders with managing different timelines and documentation.”
One the jobs he was offered was as a Mechanical Engineer with Norman Disney & Young, a Canberra engineering firm that wanted him to work on smart building management systems with renewable energy sources.
He received three job offers in the end, two of them in the aerospace industry in Singapore.
He is thrilled with his job at Bombardier, where he had previously served as an intern.
“My role involves collaborating with Regional Sales Managers, Personal Assistants, Schedulers, and Planners to determine pricing and standard downtime for various work scopes,” he said. “Additionally, I support frontline sales and external customers with Bombardier’s aftermarket services.”
Thankful as career takes flight
Borui credits his professors with encouraging him to think creatively and provide innovative solutions to problems which honed his ability to analyse issues with depth and speed.
“Because they are conducting research and connected in the industry, they could feed this into lectures, labs, and projects,” he said.
Both remotely and in person, he said that the Systems Engineering program at ANU provided him with hands-on opportunities to practice systematic thinking, analyse problems, and devise a comprehensive and standardized approach to project development.
His fondest memories are of late-night strategy sessions for group projects he knew would have real-world applications.
“Group projects like Capstone not only expanded my technical knowledge but also fostered personal and professional growth,” he said.
“From conceptualization to testing, each stage of the project followed a meticulous methodology that mirrors professional practices in the industry. This equipped us with the skills necessary to navigate complex projects and make meaningful contributions in a real workplace setting.”
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