The City of London celebrate National Women in Engineering Day

The City of London celebrated National Women in Engineering Day, 23 June, with students from the City of London Academy Southwark. The workshop was hosted by City of London female engineers and STEM Ambassadors, Jessica Frith, Katie Bishop and Katherine Warry, and provided a glimpse into daily tasks and possible career paths within the engineering field. An enthusiastic group of young women from Years Seven, Eight and Nine undertook a variety of tasks throughout the day. The first task of the day the students were asked to “draw an engineer.” The aim of this exercise was to eliminate stereotypes within engineering and comparisons were made to drawings at the end of the session:

The students were then given a presentation by the engineers about highway engineering, their experiences, examples of projects and routes into engineering. The most popular activity was when the students worked in teams to design their own version of the western space in Aldgate. The girls presented their designs and were judged on their creativity, budget, consideration of the local stakeholders and the surrounding area.

The session received excellent feedback from the students, teachers and event organisers. Some of the feedback results are below:

“Volunteering at the National Women in Engineering Day 2015 was a very rewarding experience. The best part was seeing the girls from the City of London Academy Southwark take part in the activities that we created, and actually enjoy it! The feedback from the girls was another highlight, which showed that the girls listened, understood and were interested in engineering!” Jessica Frith, Project Engineer, City of London Corporation.