Building services engineering personal statement example

Why do you want to study this course or subject?

The flat we live in has one bedroom that never warms up and a kitchen that never cools down. For years I assumed this was just how old buildings behaved. Then in Year 12 physics we worked through thermal conductivity and U-values, and I realised the difference between those two rooms was not bad luck but the result of decisions somebody made about insulation, glazing, radiator sizing and where the extractor fan went. That shift in how I saw ordinary rooms is what pulled me towards building services engineering rather than a broader engineering route.

What appeals to me is that the subject sits between physics and daily life. Heating, ventilation, lighting, water and power are the systems people actually notice, usually when they go wrong, and they account for a large share of a building's energy use in operation. I am interested in the fact that a building can be well designed on paper and still perform poorly once occupied, because people open windows, override controls or use rooms differently from the way the designer assumed. I would like to understand that gap properly, with the maths behind load calculations and airflow rather than guesswork.

Ventilation interests me most at the moment, partly because my younger brother has asthma and I have become alert to damp, stuffiness and dust in the places we spend time. Reading around the subject, I was struck by how often adequate ventilation and adequate heating pull against each other, and how mechanical ventilation with heat recovery is offered as a way round that trade-off. I want to learn where such systems genuinely help and where simpler measures do the job at lower cost.

I am also drawn to the practical, collaborative side. Building services engineers work alongside architects, structural engineers and contractors, arguing for space in ceiling voids and risers. I like the idea of technical work that has to be negotiated with other people rather than settled alone.

How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare?

I am studying Maths, Physics and Geography at a sixth form college. Maths gives me the tools I expect to use constantly: trigonometry and vectors, differentiation for rates of change, and logarithms, which appeared again when I read about decibels and sound levels in plant rooms. I find mechanics the most satisfying part of physics, and the thermal physics unit was the point where the course started to feel connected to buildings. Learning specific heat capacity and calculating how much energy is needed to raise the temperature of a volume of water made the sizing of a hot water cylinder feel like an answerable question rather than a mystery.

Geography has been an unexpectedly useful third subject. Studying urban change and energy supply has given me a sense of the pressures buildings sit inside: an ageing housing stock, retrofit costs, and the argument about whether to improve what exists or build new. It has also improved my writing and my handling of data sources, which I think matters in engineering reports.

For my physics coursework I investigated heat loss by measuring the cooling of water in containers with different wrappings, comparing bubble wrap, newspaper and a foil layer. The results were less tidy than I hoped because my lids were inconsistent, and repeating the trials with a fixed lid arrangement taught me more about controlling variables than any lesson had. I have since read parts of the CIBSE Guide A in my college library, and although much of it is beyond me at present, the sections on comfort criteria and design temperatures showed me the kind of reference material an engineer actually works from.

Outside the syllabus I follow building performance discussions online and have taught myself the basics of a free CAD package, drawing the layout of our flat and marking where the radiators and the extractor sit. Doing that made me notice how little space services are given when a plan is drawn quickly.

What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?

Two evenings a week and most Saturday mornings I look after my ten-year-old brother while my mother works a shift. That includes his asthma routine: checking he uses his inhaler, keeping his room aired without letting it get cold, and knowing when a cough needs more attention. It has made me organised with time, because homework has to fit around when he is settled, and it has taught me to explain things patiently, which I use when helping classmates with mechanics questions.

I volunteer twice a month at our community hall, setting out chairs and running the tea urn for a lunch club. Last winter the committee kept receiving complaints that the main room was either freezing or unbearable, so I offered to keep a simple record. For six weeks I noted the thermostat setting, a thermometer reading near the window and by the door, the number of people present and what the complaints were. The pattern was clear enough to be useful: the room overheated once the lunch club filled up, because the heating ran on a timer regardless of occupancy, and the thermostat sat in the coldest corner. I passed my notes to the committee, who mentioned it to the contractor who services the boiler. I do not know what was eventually changed, but I learnt how much a badly placed sensor can undermine a whole system, and how convincing a record of observations can be compared with people simply disagreeing.

I work Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings in a bakery, serving customers and closing up. It is fast, repetitive work that has made me reliable and calm with people who are in a hurry. Playing in a netball league keeps me disciplined about turning up, and as a fairly quiet member of the team I have found I am better at organising and encouraging than at shouting instructions.

I am applying with the expectation that a lot of hard technical work is ahead of me, and I am ready for it.

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