When Sam started his MEng Electrical and Electronic Engineering degree at the University of Southampton, he knew he was going to get an informative education experience that would open some doors.
What he got was so much more: international publication, presenting to industry leaders at a conference in Crete, competing at the Icarus Cup, the pinnacle of UK pedal-powered flight, and being named UKESF Scholar of the Year, all before graduating.
“I chose to study at Southampton because it’s very well regarded for my course, with excellent facilities and labs. But I didn’t expect the sheer range of opportunities to develop my skills, work collaboratively with so many different people and connect with industry. It’s far exceeded my expectations.”
Balancing theory with practical work, the four-year course covers a range of topics including electrical materials, circuits and energy storage, ensuring students are equipped with the knowledge and skills for today’s industry. But it was the extracurricular opportunities that set Sam’s experience apart.
It’s been a fantastic experience and a unique opportunity to be involved with a student engineering project alongside my degree.
Sam, MEng Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Through the Human Powered Aircraft Society, Sam designed electronic systems for a pedal-powered aircraft, creating a flight simulator, collecting flight data, building a wireless ground station, and developing fly-by-wire controls using custom circuit boards. The group has spent the last year working and manufacturing new design features, ready to take flight in the Icarus Cup in summer 2026.
For his third-year individual project, Sam delved into hardware acceleration for a post-quantum cryptosystem called McEliece and integrated it into a computer instruction set architecture called RISC-V, a modern and increasingly popular architecture. His paper was published by the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Resilience (CSR) and he presented it at the conference in Crete.
He's contributed to hardware verification projects with Synopsys and completed a placement with Arm working on digital hardware prototyping, work that earned him the Scholar of the Year award from the UK Electronics Skills Foundation.
"It's been fantastic working on a major engineering project alongside my degree and I was honoured to receive the award. My teachers and supervisors have supported me and helped me with all the activities I’ve been involved in, and these opportunities have enriched my education. This is one of the great things about studying at Southampton. Electronics engineering is an exciting field to be part of, as it is one of the main disciplines at the forefront of modern technology. What I’ve learnt at Southampton will give me an excellent foundation as I move into the next phase of my career in industry.”
