Luton woman's drive puts her on the right track in engineering

After being diagnosed with dyslexia in her late teens, a Luton woman has turned her life around.

Elin Esnard had been destined for university after completing her GCSEs at Barnfield South Academy. But the dyslexia diagnosis threw her off course during her A-levels, sapping her self confidence and affecting her concentration.

But now the 22-year-old is a Third Year Technical Apprentice with aerospace engineering company Leonardo in Capability Green, has become one of their top performing apprentices.

Elin said: “At high school I had been quite academic. My GCSEs were good and my school pushed me into going towards university, taking me to conferences in London and events for Oxford and Cambridge. At that point my grades were good enough to consider going there in the future and that was the only reason why I was ignoring all the signs that this may not be the best choice for me.”

For years Elin had managed her undiagnosed dyslexia on her own and receiving a formal diagnosis brought it to the front of her mind, sapping her self-confidence and affecting her concentration.

Elin explained: When I couldn’t sit my A-level exams and get the results I had hoped for, I felt really stupid, unintelligent, a failure and that I wouldn’t do anything with my life. All my friends had gone off to university and I didn’t feel worth anything."

But supported by her mum Vikki Powell, Elin started at Luton Sixth Form and it was during the summer of her first year at college that she did a week’s work experience at Leonardo.

Elin said: “I felt I was having the best time of my life learning about engineering and meeting new people. We were looking at design, soldering things and the whole week inspired me. I went back to college for a second year but did not do very well. Then at first it was like ‘I am never going to get to work for a company like that’. “

After completing Sixth Form College, Elin held down three jobs at the same time, as a waitress, a showroom assistant and a gymnastics coach. It turned out that coupled with her intelligence and enthusiastic attitude and determination, all of these roles gave her transferrable skills that made her a strong candidate for Leonardo.

"This experience taught me that the reason I didn’t do my A Levels or get those other jobs was that there was a much better opportunity further down the line that I needed to be free for," she said. "If you keep persevering and going through what you are going through and work really hard, you will get there. It might be straight away or a couple of years down the line, but everything happens for a reason and you will get what you work for.”

Elin attends Bedford College one day a week and is currently finishing a BTech Level 3 in Engineering while working towards an Engineering Technician Standard. When she finishes her apprenticeship, she would like to move into an engineering role, inspired by the example of her grandfather who was an electronics engineer at the Natural Environment Research Council. Her grandfather would often accompany biologists on trips at sea to monitor the environment.

Sharing why she believes self-care is vital to professional growth, Elin said: “Look after yourself, burning yourself out is not fun. That means caring for your mental health and your physical health. Listen to your body, listen to your mind and put yourself at the top of your priority list and then you will be able to grasp opportunities to the fullest when they come along.”