Around 80 young women with a spark for science and maths are in Wollongong this week, having traveled from every corner of NSW and the ACT. The group aged 14 to 16 are attending the Women in Engineering Summit organised by the University of Wollongong to discover just how cool a career in the field could be.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Group leader coordinator for the summit Yang-Ming Goh, 20, attended a downsized version of the week long camp in 2012 before eventually embarking on an engineering cadet program at BlueScope Steel.
She said the camp had grown significantly since she had experienced it and now included activities developed around renewable energy, medicine, environmental sustainability plus creativity and design. The students will to be exposed to coding, testing water quality, soldering, animatronics, star gazing, 3D printing and visit industry sites like TransGrid’s Dapto substation.
Miss Goh, originally from Newcastle, said she was able to study higher level subjects that were needed for entry into university at her high school including completion of a tertiary subject as part of her HSC. But not everyone is so lucky.
“I always had a chance to do stereotypically more male dominated subjects at my school but some of [these girls] go to girls’ school’s and don’t get offered subjects like hard sciences or computer related IT subjects,” she said.
A Pricewaterhouse Coopers report released last year predicted half of Australia’s current professions were at high risk of disappearing thanks to automated technology taking over, but there were not enough students gaining the skills needed for the future – especially girls. The PwC report, The STEM Imperative: Future Proofing Australia’s Workforce, also revealed a decline in enrollments for STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects in year 12.
Emily Dong, 14, from Sydney admitted her mother signed her up without her knowing, but was surprised at how much she was enjoying it. She said life as an engineer sounded “really cool” and would look to choose appropriate HSC subjects.
Andrea Holden, 16, of Mudgee didn’t expect so many girls to attend the camp but said it was great. She originally had an interest in architecture but decided that would be too “boring and simple” so wants to eventually pursue civil structural engineering.
“I’ve liked learning about the different types of engineering and broadening my view on it so i have the option to fall back on something else rather than just having the mindset of being a civil engineer,” she said.”I also liked the the self-branding workshop about using your strengths in a positive way rather than letting them overtake you.”
