An exciting opportunity arose recently for female senior students to attend a day organised by Ara Institute of Canterbury to shadow a mentor in the engineering and ICT industries. Kate Stedman (12CS), Joy Louie (12CS) and Olivia Singleton (11NI) were lucky enough to attend. 

The day consisted of two speakers in the morning at Ara, then off into the workforce with their mentors for most of the day and then back to Ara for a few more speakers. 

The girls enjoyed their day exploring engineering and ICT and here are their reports:

“For ShadowTech Day, my mentor was a biomedical engineer and I got a chance to visit an engineering company called Ossis where they design custom implants for patients in New Zealand and Australia. I really enjoyed it as I got to visit my mentor’s workplace, talk to her and her colleagues about their jobs and how they got there. I was also able to try out one of their design computer programs for hip implants and was shown a couple of their prototypes and how they worked. Getting a chance to see what a job as an engineer looks like is really helpful and interesting as I have always been interested in engineering as an option, but was also interested in biology/medical field. This job combines both aspects of Biology and Physics/Maths which was really interesting and something I might look into for the future.” - Joy Louie

“I ‘shadowed’ an electrical engineer at GHD, an engineering firm, and got to meet many other kinds of engineers, including structural engineers, geotechnical engineers and water/natural resource engineers. I spoke to many people who were all very enthusiastic and helpful in encouraging my interest in engineering. Although I like maths, science and problem-solving with technology, I had never considered it as a career before. The speakers and mentors I met on Shadow Tech Day were very helpful in painting a picture for me of what the day-to-day job being an engineer is really about.” - Kate Stedman

Link to the ONE News report on the day: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/new-scheme-aims-get-more-girls-into-and-engineering