In an exclusive interview with Mr Singh, who hasn’t even done his A-levels, I have uncovered the true fantasies about job experience at Lockheed Martin, from ‘igniting’ the makings of true passion, to the extent of which companies like it are shaping our futures in becoming smarter and more able than ever before imagined.
Firstly, we are all probably wondering how a student just fresh off the GCSE blocks has grasped the opportunity to work at one of the most prestigious aeronautical and technological businesses in the world, rivalling the likes of NASA and SpaceX. Obviously, to appeal to such an exclusive company wasn’t easy- in fact the other dozen or so people involved included individuals who have ‘somehow learnt 12 coding languages’ and even ‘made their own CPU in their garage’.
However, grades are just the tip of the iceberg required to eve be considered for a place- the grind required a combination of outstanding results in ‘co-curricular competitions such as the UKMT’ and the lengthy process of applying to ‘over 50 other companies’ in the hopes that one would eventually breach the expectations. But naturally, Lockheed Martin was definitely the priority for Mr Singh, who believes that you should always ‘make most of the opportunities given to you’- perfect advice to all aspiring engineers.
And the daily travel was nearly unbearable if it weren’t for the prize of participation at the end of that long week! ‘Four hours there and back, including 7 hours of actual work’ left Mr Singh with 9 hours a day at home, including sleep, dinner and further work at home.
An average day at this institution included activities such as ‘Code Quests’, involving questions such as ‘coding a self-driving car that swerves away from objects’. As much as Lockheed Martin invests into weaponry, they certainly care about safety at least twice as much! Mr Singh also mentioned access to the ‘open systems laboratory’, which involves complex machine learning and the use of algorithms. Engineering truly ‘is everywhere’ in this brainstorming hotspot.
But good engineering isn’t the main skill that is necessary for success in this cauldron of knowledge! Sometimes, good ‘teamwork and leadership’ abilities really enhance this once in a lifetime experience into simulations for future life- in fact something that was really focused on in this event was ‘what [they] wanted to do in their future life’, letting them how the value of ‘having a degree and [this] knowledge’.
Most importantly, Mr Singh tells us about all the different conversations he had with ‘system engineers, software engineers, computer engineers’- the whole lot and more! Something he noted was the lack of diversity of the people; for some reason, women and ethnic minorities were somewhat underrepresented, but, as he notes, all the people there ‘deserve the place’ they have in the business. If they are the best, then so be it, but maybe this can change in the future, supporting the heart and cauldron of Britain’s economy.
Until then, we can only imagine what hides behind the ‘confidential’, closed doors of this true megacompany, hopefully to see these ‘skewed’ stereotypes fixed by another day!
