Free courses, guides and mentorship
Build strong foundations for your engineering career.
Clear, step-by-step help for students, graduates and early-career engineers: learn the ground, build your portfolio, and plan your next step, including a funded Master’s or PhD.
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Free courses
Practical courses for engineers and researchers.
Free, self-paced courses in research skills and ground engineering, built from real practice. Start with one of these, or browse them all.
Plot Figures Your Reader Can Trust
Assess whether a graph communicates its evidence clearly, and fix what doesn’t.
6 short lessons · 20 to 30 minutesView course →Soil Mechanics Fundamentals
From how soils form to settlement and slope stability, with worked examples in every lesson.
8 lessons ready now · more being added · no sign-upView course →Desk Study: from zero to your first report
Research a site before anyone digs, step by step, and write your first desk study.
8 lessons · about 4 hoursView course →New · A branch of soil mechanics
Unsaturated Soil Mechanics
Most construction happens above the water table, in soil that holds both air and water. Learn when suction helps you, how long you can rely on it, and when losing it is the hazard.
Start the pathway →- 1–2Recognising unsaturated soil problems, reading soil-water behaviour: open now
- 3–4Engineering decisions, investigation: coming next
- Freewith sign-up · optional expert marking
From the Journal
Latest guides and essays
Practical guidance for students, engineers and researchers, and short essays on what the ground can teach us about life.
Field Trips and Site Visits: Why They Matter and How to Make the Most of Them
Why site visits matter, and how to get real value from them even when they carry no marks.
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Before You Send Another Cold Email, Check Who You Are Emailing
Before rewriting your email, check that you are writing to researchers with current funding and a genuine fit.
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Starting Civil Engineering? What to Focus on at Every Stage
What to learn, record and develop at each stage of your civil engineering degree.
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What Is Unsaturated Soil? A Practical Guide for Civil and Geotechnical Engineers
Matric suction, rainfall effects and the evidence engineers need to recognise real ground problems.
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The Weathered Mind
What soil weathering can teach us about change, growth and becoming.
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Pre-consolidation Pressure: What Soil Teaches Us About Resilience
What soil teaches us about resilience after carrying pressure.
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When Soil Cracks
A reflection on warning signs, stress and the importance of paying attention.
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Sand or Clay? Which Are You?
What two very different soils can teach us about ourselves.
Read moreWant one-to-one support?
Free mentorship, by application
For students, graduates and early-career engineers and researchers who are ready to work steadily towards one clear goal.
- A clear 90-day planOne goal, broken into steps you can actually take.
- Regular one-to-one callsTo review progress, solve problems and agree what comes next.
- Feedback on your workHonest, practical comments on your reviews and applications.
Stay in touch
Useful Lessons, Resources and Opportunities, in Your Inbox
Occasional emails with lessons from soil, practical engineering and research guidance, career and funding opportunities, new resources, and early access to free courses.
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For universities, employers and schools
Training, talks and teaching support
Alongside the free courses, I work with organisations: geotechnical and ground investigation training for graduate and early-career engineers, realistic assessment briefs for universities, lab testing support for PhD research, guest lectures, and volunteer talks for schools.
About me
Hello, I’m Damilola
I am a geotechnical engineer and educator. I hold a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, specialising in the behaviour of unsaturated and tropical soils. I have taught geotechnical engineering at two UK universities, and in consultancy I have worked on projects in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and the UK.
Everything here is built from that mix of teaching and practice, so you get clear, practical help from someone who has done the work.