UKESF supports female scholars at WES Student Conference for second year
For the second year running the UKESF has supported three final-year female scholars in attending the annual Women’s Engineering Society (WES) Student Conference with all-expenses-paid places.
The conference took place at Aston University, Birmingham, from 24th to 25th November and brought together over 150 students, academics and young engineers. The theme this year was ‘Engineering to Change the World’, which encouraged attendees to explore pathways to technical leadership. The conference provided the opportunity to network with role models, gain insight into societal challenges, improve technical skills and self-confidence, and develop career–life balance strategies.
Our attendees, including Scholar of the Year 2017 Eliza Law, had a great time and share their thoughts below.
“The WES Student Conference was an opportunity for women in engineering disciplines to come together and take inspiration from each other’s careers, aspirations and achievements. Unfortunately there aren’t many women in later STEM careers, so as a student just starting out it can be difficult to see beyond the next obvious step. Hearing about the individual journeys with setbacks and sidesteps included, which all culminated in fulfilling careers and a sense of personal success, was truly heartening. I think that all of the students left the conference feeling emboldened to define their own success and use their skills to change the world! For me, personally, meeting other young engineers from different disciplines and finding out that we have similar ideas about how engineering will influence the world was incredibly inspiring. I look forward to working with these amazing people in the future!!”
“The WES Student Conference was an excellent opportunity to network with a range of female engineers, who were all at different stages in their careers. The focus of this year’s conference was ‘Engineering to Change the World’, which included talks on ‘Seizing Career Opportunities’, ‘Engineers Without Borders’ and ‘Global Health’. In addition to these inspiring presentations, there was also the opportunity to take part in interactive workshops. I found the ‘CVs and Applications’ and the ‘Managing Unconscious Bias’ workshops to be the most enjoyable aspects of the conference, and particularly useful as I am due to graduate this year. I would like to thank the UKESF for supporting my attendance at the event – it was a fantastic opportunity.”