In what’s becoming an annual tradition and anticipated start to the year, Holmes Fire, once again, hosted a small number of engineering students from the University of Maryland. As part of their short course ‘Australia: Global Perspectives of International Business in Engineering & Technology’, students spend nearly 3 weeks visiting some of Sydney’s iconic venues and meeting a variety of people in the industry. With the students coming from all engineering majors, the course exposes these future engineers to the differences in workplace culture and industry requirements in Australia and broader insight into what opportunities are available for them as a career.
The presentation covered life at Holmes and the Australian fire engineering industry with several of our staff joining to speak about their experiences followed by a case study presentation and a site visit to one of Sydney’s most well-known heritage sites.
Alyson, Nick and Sean, Fire Engineers from the US themselves, spoke to the students about how they’ve benefitted from life at Holmes Fire Sydney so far and the industry differences they’ve found working in Australia.
Structural Fire Engineer, Linus, gave the students an introduction into Structural Fire Engineering, its’ growing importance internationally and how Holmes is leading the way.
Concluding the presentation, Michael, a Senior Fire Engineer who has been involved with the ongoing project since 2010, gave the students an overview of Sydney Town Hall, the issues involved and the Performace Solutions applied to the project before escorting the students on a tour of the heritage site.
We look forward to continuing to educate future UMD students on the differences in business cultures on the other side of the world and, hopefully, encourage them to come back and visit Sydney and maybe, stay awhile.