London Stansted celebrates ‘Women and Girls in Science’ day with special STEM event for Harlow students
A group of young women from Harlow got a unique opportunity to meet with female engineers, pilots and other staff at London Stansted, at an event to mark United Nations International Day of Women and Girls in Science this week.
Fifty pupils in Years 8, 9 and 10 from Stewards Academy in Harlow attended the event at the Aerozone, Stansted Airport’s dedicated education facility. The airport team included an easyJet captain, a Fed Ex operations manager, and colleagues from across security, finance, IT, engineering and more departments at the airport.
Each colleague hosted a table with the groups of students rotated around the room to ask questions and find out more about the job they do and how they chose their career path.
The event was supported by Baroness Vere, the Government's Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, who sent a video message for the students attending the event.
When I was much younger, I did biochemical engineering at university and look where it got me. So, my message to you at this important time of year, as we celebrate the successes of women, is to think carefully about doing a STEM degree, STEM apprenticeship and STEM subjects at school because it’s really, really important.
It can set you up to some great careers later in life and doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be putting on overalls and a hard hat, although you may, but there are so many really good careers you can go on and do.
So, I hope you have a great day. Please think carefully about a career in STEM, and maybe one day you could be like me and have a little bit of budget to spend on new roads, new buses and new trains across the country.
We believe that it is important to use our resources to break down some of the barriers facing young women and share the expertise of our on-site colleagues. We were delighted to welcome young ladies from the local community, who might be trying to decide on future career paths, to hear from female colleagues in various roles in and around the airport and to be inspired to pursue their goals or research careers in STEM. Our colleagues enjoy getting involved and are always on hand to support our award-winning educational schemes.
Today was really useful as it made me think about what career path I would like to go down after school and what options I need to take to get there. The thing I enjoyed most was asking people with STEM careers about how they do their job and most of all, meeting them face to face.
At first I wasn’t sure about STEM but now I have more detail and have gone into depth into the kind of careers girls can go into.
I found out loads more about STEM and how there are so many different roles in STEM for girls.