Continuing our strong commitment and focus on education and support for the next generation of engineers, MIEngineers was a willing sponsor and active participant in the University of Wollongong’s ‘STEM Camp for Girls’.
STEM Education (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) adopts an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to inspire students to ‘make things happen’ through themes that tie into the social sciences and humanities. It particularly highlights how a STEM degree empowers young people to contribute in many areas including the environment, health, humanities and the arts.
With the aim of inspiring girls into the STEM fields from an early stage of their education – years 10 and 11 – the University of Wollongong runs an annual 4-day STEM Camp program in January each year. This year a group of 60 very enthusiastic 15-16 year girls from across NSW attended the camp.
With a female CEO, Amy-Ruth MacDonald, MIEngineers was a proud supporter of this initiative and as a bronze sponsor alongside other sponsor companies such as Transport for NSW, BlueScope Steel, we were given the opportunity to appoint a group leader for the camp.
Elizabeth Flack, a Civil Engineer based in MIEngineers Nowra office was our representative as a group leader. She was personally convinced to start a career in Civil Engineering while studying at University of Wollongong.
She relished the privilege of having a group of girls ‘under her care’ for the week in a role which involved mentoring, assisting with aspects of the course content and answering a myriad of questions from the inquisitive students, who were keen to learn more about engineering as a potential career.
Elizabeth explained the activities of our group of companies, provided an insight into the field of Civil Engineering and specifically focussed on career aspects, outlining the possibilities for the girls especially using new technology for problem solving.
The result – Elizabeth reports that the girls got very excited about STEM and we have a new generation of girls inspired to get into engineering!
The STEM Camp is a great opportunity for MIEngineers to show our strong support for diversity and equal opportunity within our company and to inspire females to enter and prosper in the industry and our CEO, Amy-Ruth MacDonald is committed to continuing patronage of such initiatives.
Click here for more information about STEM Camp for Girls.