Opportunities for students

Transcript

Hello, my name is Ish and I'm the Student Engagement Officer at the Women in Engineering and IT unit at UTS. Our vision is to create and lead social change so that study and career journeys are not limited by gender. Some of our programs include primary and high school outreach, scholarships, and Lucy mentoring. Now you're going to hear a little bit more about our programs from our Women in Engineering and IT community.

I'm currently in my third year of the Women in Engineering and IT Cooperative Scholarship in Software Engineering. What that means is I have an industry placement every year with a company that is part of the program. This has given me an insight into how I can articulate my classroom-based learning at UTS with the industry. It's a really good program because it allowed me to connect to the industry, as well as understand more of the different opportunities out there after I leave university.

With this program, you get paired up with a mentor for 20 weeks. I was able to connect with an industry professional from my field of study. I got to learn about the professional workplace, expand my knowledge about the opportunities I have, and connect with more people to gain those opportunities and improve myself professionally and personally.

In terms of outreach programs, I've been able to visit many high schools and help students learn about topics from electrical engineering to solar panels, to even just the basic mechanics of engineering. Seeing their excitement at getting to do hands-on engineering activities that we do here at university has been so exciting and rewarding.

You really get the chance to develop your leadership and communication skills and work with the industry as well. I've been able to work with a lot of like-minded people, and that has been really great for me because I've been able to relay my HSC experience to other students. It's been an opportunity for me to tell what I would tell my younger self to someone else.

I've been coming to it ever since I was in first year and it's been a really good community. I know that I'm safe and I have support around me with the people involved, with other students as well. I've met a lot of my friends through there and it really gave me that safeguard coming into UTS as a first year student. Straight out of high school I was really scared, but knowing that there are other women engineers around me with the same kind of issues that we're facing in industry and at university helped. Just having those casual catch-ups every week has been really good.

I'd just say, get involved with whatever activities your passion leads you to. There are so many and you can't go wrong, because if you don't like one you can just move on to the next. The biggest mistake is just not doing anything.

I would highly recommend coming and joining us here at UTS, and I think you'll find that the UTS community and Women in Engineering and IT will really support you in exploring your interests. You'll have the chance to diversify your connection with industry, meet other women and people to work with, and there are many opportunities here for you to explore your field of interest as well.