Enviro Final Year Project Night

Posted by William Wilson (Monash Environmental Engineering Society) on 26 October 2017

The great mysteries of a Final Year Project (FYP) explained…

Thursday night of Week 8 saw the Environmental Engineering Society unveil a brand new event: FYP Night. ‘Final Year Project’ is the name commonly used to refer to the unit “CIV4210 – Project A”. It’s an intense semester-long period of research, usually in the last year of study, that every student must do before graduating. This unit is unique in that it has no regular contact hours, 100% of the unit mark is based on a single assignment and the whole time you work alone under an academic supervisor. In addition, this unit has just been restructured and there is a new head of environmental engineering, so there was plenty of confusion and uncertainty to spare within the enviro cohort.

There were 5 speakers, all final year enviros and all with a unique experience to share. Zoe Gerardson started the night off my presenting her FYP, typical for most students: an environmental project done at Monash. Her topic was on how to power the world with 100% renewables. Mitch Dixon, although an enviro, is doing the chemical engineering FYP on a chemical process system, which is a 12 credit unit done with a group in just one semester! This requires the right prerequisites and is a very intense workload. Alec Miller is doing is FYP on contaminated mine sites. By giving up an elective he is able to do a 12 credit point year long FYP, which allows you to delve far deeper into your topic. Claire Marshall did her FYP with the organisation Engineers Without Borders (EWB), instead of Monash. This required her to balance the project outcomes of both EWB and Monash. EWB offers FYP’s to students every year. Finally, Priya Agarwal did an FYP that was so ground breaking and of such high quality that she is now in the process of getting hers published in a peer reviewed journal!

After the presentations delicious Thai food was served, and networking and further one on one discussions about FYP’s commenced. The enviros were left with some important messages: choose a topic that both you and your supervisor love, find a supervisor you get on with, do lots of background research early on, it is never too early to start writing your research paper, and an FYP is long and stressful so take proper care of yourself! All attendees felt FYP Night was a big success and no doubt we’ll see its return next year.

Find out more about the Monash Environmental Engineering Society