An Engineer who Loves to Travel!

Supasit Piyawannaphong, Class of 2007

Nationality: British
Years at Bangkok Patana: 6 Years (from 1999 until 2005, Year 6 to 11) 
University: MEng (Hons) Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, 2013.

What are your favourite memories of Bangkok Patana?

Too many. But, the memory that stands out is white water rafting, jumping from a platform into a river, camping, and abseiling in Chiang Mai during the year 9 residential trip.  I also attempted the climbing wall during the evening activity at the resort, but could only make it halfway up and felt proud to have won an award for taking the longest time to not complete the wall! The prize… a packet of Lays crisps, singing and doing the “YMCA” moves with the rest of the year group.

What have you been doing since leaving Bangkok Patana?

Since leaving Patana at 16, I emigrated back to Liverpool (UK) on my own to complete my A-Levels and was enrolled on the Nuffield Bursary Scheme where I was awarded the GOLD Crest Award from the British Association of Science for my investigative report on determining the percentage of fibre in food during a one month work placement. At the end of Year 13, I decided to take a gap year. During that year, I lived in Yokohama for a month, was successfully employed by Sainsbury Supermarket back in Liverpool as a part time cashier/customer services, before attending university to study Civil Engineering in Manchester. Whilst at university, I played on the engineering campus basketball team and was a member of societies such as Mahjong, Badminton social, Choir and Orchestra. In my second year of university, I had saved up a fair bit of money and backpacked around as many countries in central Europe as I could afford for one month.

After graduation, I moved to London to start my career as a Civil Engineer. My experience is diverse and revolves around the design of various structural elements such as transmission lines to Micro-tunnelling/shaft construction to supply electricity and water to the wider UK network. I am also part of my company’s young professional committee and the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACE) Progress Network aimed at supporting the development of young professionals in the engineering profession. I am currently working towards becoming a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). Outside of work, I play basketball and dodgeball in one of the many social leagues in London and still travel to places now and then; last year I climbed Mt. Triglav in Slovenia, and managed to see the Northern Lights in Kiruna during a four day husky tour which was priceless.

What are the things that you learned/experienced at Bangkok Patana that you still use today?

I learnt how to be resilient, independent, confident, and opened minded. In hindsight, the experience of a well-structured and technologically focused curriculum coupled with the plethora of extracurricular activities, outdoor education and opportunity to express oneself using different mediums (arts, music etc.) is subconsciously embedded into my personality and has molded me into the person I am today. My experiences at Patana really prepared me for work and higher education. I guess the short answer is, I use all these experiences every day!

What would you like to be doing in ten-years’ time?

Hard question to answer. I really don’t know and not knowing is exciting!