The future of the world’s energy supply is a challenge that excites Rhianna Cardamone, a University of Queensland graduand. Cardamone is a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) valedictorian, who is about to start a job with ConocoPhillips. ConocoPhillips is an exploration and production company. Cardamone has a variety of experiences under her belt, having been a mentor of the Young Achievers Program and undertaking internships and experiences with CSIRO, Sugar Research Australia, MSF Sugar and Rio Tinto.
“The role my industry holds in deciding what the future of the world’s energy supply looks like is one of immense responsibility, but also immense opportunity,” Cardamone said. Cardamone participated in the New Colombo Plan during her studies, with a sponsored visit to Japan. Cardamone thanked the mentorship she received at the university which emboldened her to achieve excellence. Following this, she took a semester off for an internship with Oshima Shipbuilding industry, which provided her with practical work and industry research. Cardamone’s semester away and its practical experiences helped to contextualize her studies. It is definitely something she would recommend to all students.
“It helped me to appreciate the teaching methods I was exposed to – the importance of understanding concepts from first principles, why I had to work in groups all the time and how important economic understanding is to engineering.” she said. “Even more so, I gained understanding of how all these different aspects – technical, relational and business – needed to work together.” Ms Cardamone said that she was drawn towards engineering “because there was always a purpose behind the projects” and she is looking forward to a busy and meaningful career for herself. “I want to work hard to always maintain integrity, promote teamwork, operate ethically and in doing this, strive to achieve excellence.”
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