At the beginning of the year my office was asked to sponsor
an event being organised by one of our students. I get a lot of requests for
sponsorship but not often for initiatives like this and when I learnt more
about what the student was trying to do I was pretty impressed.
The event, named the Dream Big Project, was the idea of
third year engineering student Jessica Kahl and aimed to inspire young women in
the latter years of high school, to choose engineering as a career path. As
well as being an all-round good idea I was also keen to see it go ahead as it
was likely to be a great opportunity for us to interact with and recruit future
students.
Last week however it came to my attention that the Project
had in fact been recognised as a nominee in the Engineers Australia Gender
Diversity Awards under the category of ‘Most Encouraging student or non-profit
group in Gender Diversity’. While Jess and the Project didn’t win the category
the Dream Big project was given a highly commended stamp.
The fact that this Project was recognised as a nominee by
such a prestigious, national organisation got me thinking how this was more
than just a great opportunity for the University to interact with prospective
students. It was actually a chance for young women to be inspired by someone
they can relate to and to be switched on to a career in engineering and the
many possibilities that come with this. Traditionally, engineering has been a
vocation that primarily attracted males (as with many of the maths and science
related disciplines), so how great is it that something is being done to change
this and to encourage girls to become engineers? More so how great is it that it
is a CQUniversity student leading the charge?
Congratulations on your recognition Jessica! You definitely
deserve it. I can’t wait to see the Dream Big Project develop further and the
impact it will have on attracting more women into the program.
To learn more about the Dream Big Project please go to the
site Jessica has developed http://jessicakahl1995.wix.com/dream-big-project.
Participants at this year's event
No comments:
Post a Comment