You don't have to study music to sing in Collegium Musicum Choir! Kyra is completing a combined B Engineering/B Arts in Mechatronics, Ancient History and Psychology!

Transcript

Tell us about yourself?

Hello, my name is Kyra and I am a student here at UNSW. Currently I am in my third year studying a Bachelor of Engineering combined with a Bachelor of Arts and I major in Mechatronic Engineering and in the Arts I major in Ancient History with a minor in Psychology. Now despite this crazy degree combination with no music in it, I am very active in the MPU community, it started off with where I was a member of the Collegium Choir for a time and then I became an usher for a lot of the concerts that the MPU held, before more recently becoming a Production Assistant here at MPU where I organise and manage the Front of House operations for the concerts. On top of that, I was also the 2019 Executive President of the UNSW Musical Theatre Society. 

What musical highlights have you had at UNSW?

I’ve had a lot of musical highlights here at UNSW but two in particular stand out to me, one of them is when I got to be Production Assistant at the MPU. There’s just nothing like the thrill of realising you’re supposed to be in the tech box and you’re not in the tech box, so you kind of have to run across the lobby *laughs* to the tech box where you’re supposed to be so you can cue the lights. But, also I’ve always wanted to wear the headset, like I feel like a secret agent wearing the headset. The second musical highlight for me at UNSW would definitely be when I was President of the UNSW Musical Theatre Society. I was definitely in over my head as a second year being a President of a Society I had only been a member of for a year, but I got to work with some amazing people, some really talented people, and there were a lot of ups and there were also a lot of downs, but I wouldn’t replace it for the world, I learned so much.

Tell us about your degree?

I’ve gotten a range of reactions to my degree combination. I remember in High School when I went to the Careers Advisor, she took one look at my subject list and said, “yeah I don’t know what to tell you, it’s half Arts and half Science”, so doing combined degree of Engineering and Arts just seemed like the most obvious solution to me when I first came here to UNSW. The Mechatronic Engineering also seems obvious to me as Mechatronic Engineering is a mixture of electrical, software and mechanical engineering or as I say, it’s about robots, but this degree has definitely gotten me a lot of interesting questions at job interviews. Sometimes I think they let me into the interview stage just so they can ask me about my degree combination. But in the future I hope this degree takes me somewhere where I am working with people, as you can see with my Psychology degree I like working with people, but I also really like working on engineering projects which I have been exposed to here at UNSW and also in my engineering internship which I currently have. I am just really looking forward to where this degree will take me.