Susan Mwaniki is a civil engineer, author and poet based in Dublin. Her professional experience spans transport and civil engineering, while her creative writing predominantly explores her experiences as a second-generation Kenyan immigrant growing up in Botswana and South Africa. 

Growing up in Gaborone, Botswana, in a Kenyan immigrant family, education was non‑negotiable. A university degree was mandatory, and my path to civil engineering was shaped by personal interest, geography and socioeconomic realities.

Megastructures on National Geographic

My eldest brother became my first engineering role model when he began studying civil engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. At the time, my seventh-grade understanding of the field barely extended beyond the show Megastructures on National Geographic.

When it came to my interests, I was drawn to the arts such as writing, painting and performance, yet I also excelled in science and mathematics. When I relocated to South Africa for boarding school at the age of 13, maths became my anchor. I didn’t speak the local languages, but equations remained constant.

As immigrants living in another developing country, economic feasibility shaped my parents’ education strategy. They had grown up amid the instability of postcolonial Kenya, and their parents had encouraged degrees that were marketable and stable, as the nation transitioned from being a colony to a republic. This strategy became transgenerational.

For my brothers and I, our degree selection had to meet these three criteria: be on South Africa’s critical skills list (geographical stability), offer strong earning potential (financial stability), and carry social status (social capital).

Economic realities

A career in journalism appealed to me due to my strong affinity for literature, but it did not fit these parameters. My parents forecasted the potential challenges I’d face as an immigrant pursuing a journalism career in South Africa such as a lack of fluency in at least one of the 11 official languages and the lack of direct immigration pathways for a journalism professional, unlike engineering, which as a critical skill offered a more straightforward trajectory to settling in South Africa. They affirmed my artistic side by reading my blog posts, buying me art supplies and attending all my school plays but they would always remind me of the economic realities I inhabited.

A family trip to Kenya when I was 15 crystallised my commitment to civil engineering. As we were stuck in a three‑hour traffic jam between Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Nairobi’s city centre, I started wondering how such a problem was created and how it could be solved. This led me to discover transport engineering and opened my eyes to how infrastructure is a system that governs opportunity, productivity and quality of life. I realised that in engineering, I could apply my analytical strengths and creativity to solve everyday problems.

Susan Mwaniki's graduation.

I went on to study civil engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand, my family’s alma mater. It was an experience that was both technically challenging and personally defining. Outside of my studies, I served in the School of Civil Engineering’s Student Council, practised combat martial arts and nurtured my creative writing skills through my personal blog. I was beginning to realise that I didn’t have to 'choose' between different sides of myself and that qualities that I had initially siloed could translate into other aspects of my life.

Unforeseen obstacles

However, graduating during the Covid‑19 pandemic brought unforeseen obstacles. Despite a strong academic record and well-rounded extracurriculars, I struggled to secure graduate employment due to immigration restrictions. It was a stark reminder that engineering careers exist within legal and geopolitical systems, not just technical ones. I started applying for roles outside of engineering and got a job in management consulting, where my engineering training proved highly transferable, but I remained determined to practise in the field I had trained for.

When changes to South Africa’s immigration legislation prevented me from remaining in the country, I broadened my job search internationally and secured a graduate opportunity in Ireland.

As I processed my relocation documents from Kenya, I started my YouTube channel, to share insights on being a second-generation immigrant; civil engineering; immigrant employability; and the experiences of early‑career graduates navigating similar constraints.

Since moving to Ireland, I have worked as a graduate engineer on a major public transport project and I currently work in civils, with a focus on drainage design for residential, commercial and industrial developments.

Open mic performance.

Outside of work, I continue to express my creative side through writing, open mic performances to workshop my poetry and attending toastmasters meetings, where I get to improve my public speaking and storytelling capability.

Over time, I have recognised that my perceived tension between engineering and the arts is, in fact, a shared impulse: to provide society with infrastructure. Sometimes that infrastructure is tangible in the form of roads, pipelines and drainage systems that support daily life. Other times, it is imaginative and expressive, providing people with language and narrative that help them articulate complex human experiences. Both forms improve how people move, live and make sense of the world.

​​​​​​​Toastmasters meeting.

Upon reflection, I am still becoming an engineer. The title is not a fixed identity but an evolving practice, one that requires a willingness to learn, adapt and grow in understanding of the societal systems in which our work operates.

Engineering, much like writing, remains a discipline where creativity and structure coexist, and where impact extends far beyond what is visible. 

Author: Susan Mwaniki is a junior civil engineer at DBFL Consulting, and is a member of Engineers Ireland.