Class of 2024: Femi Amusan

Femi Amusan had an incredible placement year at The Little Car Company and is now getting ready to start a role as a Electronics and Complex Systems Engineer at Jaguar Land Rover in September.

Femi completed a BEng Computer Systems Engineering at Essex which included a placement year working on amazing car projects. One even featured on Top Gear's YouTube channel.

"My Placement was as Software, Powertrain and Special projects engineer at The Little Car Company," he said. "The company made scaled electric versions of classic high-end cars in partnership with the original manufacturer. This included a Bugatti Type 35, an Aston Martin DB 5 and James Bond edition, a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa and most recently a road-legal Bentley Blower and a large-scale Tamiya Wild One.

"My day-to-day role at the company was testing the whole Powertrain, including the battery packs, motors, the controller, and all wiring in between. I also wrote production code for the controller in the cars and built electric and software-based prototypes for research and development.

"My last project at the company was building the functionality for the digital screen and buttons on the Tamiya Wild One based on the design engineers' designs.

"At the placement I gained a range of practical skills and general business knowledge from amazing mentors. I also made helpful contacts in an industry that I am planning to be in."

Femi, who grew up in Watford, loved the course at Essex: "I chose this subject as I was interested in both computer science and electronic engineering, this was a great course as it was a mix of both.

"Essex was one of the few universities that offered this course, however, what really attracted me to Essex was the course structure and how practical skills were also prioritised with theory-based knowledge.

"I would recommend Essex to a prospective student as it has great courses, especially for computer science and electronic engineering. It has experienced and well-known lecturers that have worked in industry and there are many opportunities to get involved in whatever you want to be involved in."

Alongside the course Femi pursued another great love - being a sound and lighting engineer supporting big events on campus.

He said: "The most memorable thing about my time at Essex was working in the SU as a sound and light engineer and getting to be a part of so many different events including Essex's Got Talent, summer shows in Square 3 and meeting a range of popular bands and artists. I made a lot of connections and friends here."

In the summer he is using his lighting engineer skills to support a theatre tour in August and then he starts his new job in the autumn.

Femi has a special mention for one of his lecturers who helped him develop his interest in embedded systems - the technology at the heart of almost all modern products from smart phones to cars.

He said: "Dr Xiaojun Zhai's C Programming and Embedded Systems course in year two inspired me to become interested in embedded systems and realise that this is where my passion lies. To this end, I chose Xiaojun as my final year project supervisor as he has a wealth of knowledge in this area and was a very helpful mentor."