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Ready for take-off
Working in different divisions enables Ms Fu to pick up useful professional skills.
PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
ST AEROSPACE engineer Fu Peixian has a career that lets her follow her passion for complexity.
The 24-year-old and her team are in charge of converting passenger jets for cargo use. Her job is to check the structural integrity of the plane's newly installed components such as rivets, doors and the skin of aircraft.
Ms Fu never thought she would become an aircraft engineer, but as a child, she took her toys apart just to see what was inside.
"I'm intensely curious, always seeking to understand gadgets, people and structures," she says of her attraction to complex systems.
In selecting her scholarship, Ms Fu made sure she chose one that gave her the right foundation, tools and opportunities to stimulate her interests and steer her career path.
"ST Engineering gave me a lot of freedom to choose my desired discipline and universities and I received advice whenever I needed it," she says.
The company with businesses in four sectors — Aerospace, Electronics, Land Systems and Marine — is an attractive choice for scholars. They can be posted to any of these sectors initially and then move on to another after a stint. An overseas assignment in its subsidiary com-panies is another big draw.
ST Engineering sponsored her studies in mechanical engineering at Cornell University in New York for three years, and her Master of Science course in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University in California in the United States.
According to Ms Fu, mechanical engineering is one of the more established and fundamental engineering disciplines on which cross-disciplinary work such as bio-medical engineering and mechatronics are based.
"Engineering at Cornell was enjoyable, especially working with learned professors and doing hands-on projects," she says, describing how her tiny invention — a Sumo robot — wrestled hard with her peers' warriors only to be knocked out of the ring with wires bursting out.
"That was fun! I enjoyed my time at the university immensely," says Ms Fu. "I was learning from the best and the brightest and developing in all aspects — both theoretical and practical."
She made it to Cornell University's Dean's List twice and graduated with Tau Beta Pi Honours, which was accorded by an established US engineering honour society for exemplary performance on the academic and personal fronts.
Ms Fu embraced an altogether different experience at Stanford University, based in Palo Alto, California, which was in the heart of Silicon Valley.
She says: "Working with well-connected professors and peers with the spirit of 'we can change the world because we want to' was amazing."
At ST Aerospace, she has opportunities to work across divisions on technical, marketing, operations and management portfolios, all of which allows her "to get the bigger picture of what the company does".
On the company's initiatives to develop its staff in various capabilities, Ms Fu says: "Each skill you pick up helps with the next task and your next role."
With her employer providing global maintenance repair and overhaul services, Ms Fu has opportunities to travel to where its subsidiaries are located.
Last February, she flew to Alabama, in the US, to work with colleagues from ST Mobile Aerospace Engineering, on the conversions of Royal New Zealand Air Force and FedEx aircrafts.
"There I was able to get a first-hand view of our US operations. I also gained the experience of working overseas," she says.
But it is not all work and no play for Ms Fu. To provide the necessary balance in the non-technical side of life, she enjoys musicals and trips to museums. "I try to retain the artsy side of me that way," she says.