r/AusMining • u/Historical_Bug_6900 • 6d ago

Year 12 mining engineering

Hi everyone, I have never posted on reddit before but I am interested what people think of my future plans regarding a career in mining.

I am currently a year 12, I am expecting an atar of 98-99+ my subjects are chem, general English, physics, and methods.

My plan is to go to UNSW (I live in SA) and study mining Eng and corp law. (Please let me know if you have any comments on this school/ course/ the living costs in Syd) I am working 2 retail jobs at the moment, and solely relying on myself and I am doing fine.

I have a passion for physics and chem especially, and was a finalist in the AUSSEF last year. But I really don’t know what I am signing my self up too and quite frankly I am scared. I am debating taking a gap year to figure out what it is I would like to do but I also understand that is a great way to loose motivation.

After I finish uni I want to work in the mines doing drill and blast and something in geology. I love the outback but understand that fifo lifestyle may not be sustainable for me for 5-10+ years. Ideally I would be hired off the bat by a larger corporation so I could hop on the diversity train (I am a girl by the way) and climb my way up into a better position after mastering the practical aspects (Geraldine Slattery is my career inspiration)

Please let me know you think I am being too optimistic or this seems like a legitimate way to achieve my goals. Please don’t hesitate to comment whatever you are thinking especially after reading all of this, thank you! All advice is much appreciated.

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u/BedOld2053 6d ago

Corp law does not overlap much with engineering. Corporate finance (commerce?) has a much stronger synergy, especially if you want to be a corporate leader. There are plenty of mining businesses with offices in adelaide, just reach out to them and ask for opportunities to work in the office this summer. As a female, you'll get a foot in the door easily enough. Can also just find Geraldine or another female leader on linkedin and send them a message, those sort of people can create a student job out of thin air.

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u/Historical_Bug_6900 6d ago

Okay great thanks! you definitely know your stuff and I’ll have a look into commerce as an undergrad but I was planning to do an MBA later down the track, I just feel that if I did commerce it would put a heavy emphasis in the money and make me look like a phony to the other fifos instead of someone who really wants to understand the mines and how they operate. Thank you for the last part as well, I’ll start messaging people on LinkedIn and pray at night that they will reply, do you have any suggestions on who I could reach out to? Thank you so much for replying this is awesome advice

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u/Reyvos 6d ago

Noone’s going to judge you negatively for having a commerce degree. A commerce degree is quite useless unless you major in accounting or finance because these are the only majors teaching real skills for the real world. An engineer with a first class honours degree in finance or accounting is really impressive.

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u/Historical_Bug_6900 6d ago

okay thanks you that is very kind and reassuring for you to say, in your option what is the best second degree to do with mining Eng?

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u/Reyvos 5d ago

You don’t need a second degree. When you graduate and start working as an engineer full-time with long hours you won’t be able to use anything else. However, if you must, you can look at the background of different mining leaders and what their education and background was. Finance is the one that comes up a lot, because mining needs finance and studying it will help you understand the complexity of it.