Two University of Newcastle students, Charlotte McMain (BEng Mechanical Engineering) and Louisa Beevers (BEng Mechanical Engineering with Biomedical Engineering) have created ‘FemEng’ to “provide students on Engineering courses the opportunity to meet, share ideas, access career advice, network, and support one another.”
“I’ve been on the committee for the Newcastle University Mechanical Engineering Society for the past three years and in my first year the society president (Rad Sharms) set up the role of Women’s Officer. The person with this role runs the ‘Mech Eng Ladies’ Facebook group where socials specific to women studying mechanical engineering were arranged.” Louisa told me.
“It just made sense to set up a university society where like-minded women who are facing similar challenges in entering a male-dominated industry can meet and become friends.”
Logo created by @keatingwalters/@archkeatecture
Charlotte undertook a placement year where she discovered just how male-dominated many stem careers are and how intimidating it can be, especially for young graduate females, to enter the world of work.
“I have always been passionate about women in STEM/engineering, especially after having experienced the industry and realising just how underrepresented women are”, she told me.
“It seemed like the perfect opportunity to fill a gap in the ‘market’ and set up a society.”
“We were both so surprised that one hadn’t already been set up here as most other universities have one, and with such a big engineering department, it seemed incredible that we didn’t have one yet”.
STEM careers have long been recognised as a male-dominated industry, with women in such job roles and university STEM courses lower than their male counterparts.
Louisa believes that the University of Newcastle is doing a great job at allowing women in STEM to be represented but there is always room for improvement. “We have female lecturers and are regularly emailed about opportunities for women in STEM. However, it is still a noticeably male-dominated field.”
She and Charlotte remember how in their first year they “were part of a group of just over twenty girls on a course of just over two hundred.”
For Louisa, this meant she did not form many friendships with girls on her course until later on at University when the women-only society events began to happen.
Charlotte agrees that female representation in STEM is “definitely improving” but recognises that ‘there’s also a problem with conversion girls who study engineering but then don’t go on to work in engineering, and I think companies need to address this, but also it is great that as a student group we can empower girls and show there are opportunities out there to encourage women to stay in engineering.”
So far, the group has had an excellent response from students at the University. “We had formed a strong committee of twelve people within five days of discussing setting it up…Charlotte and I have been receiving emails and messages non-stop since we first emailed out to year groups with nothing but positive feedback.”
Charlotte added that they have also had large amounts of support from the boys on their course too: “also what is really lovely is all the support on social media (follows/likes) from boys on our course, which is great!”
Not only are current students in mind, but also prospective students.
“I think the society will help in attracting prospective female students to the university; Newcastle is already a great university for engineering degrees and has lots of things to attract prospective students, however, I think if there’s anyone weighing up the pros and cons of Newcastle and another, similar university, if they heard about a female engineering society, then they might sway more towards choosing Newcastle as their first choice”, Louisa hopes.
I asked them both to tell me three reasons why people should join their society:
- “Meet like-minded individuals that are outside of your course and year! Networking and mentorship opportunities are valuable, but also from a social aspect too.”
- “Access opportunities that are specific to women in STEM and will allow you to be part of the growing representation of women in STEM. Such as information about grad schemes/placements/work experience.”
- “It’s going to be fun!! We have lots of ideas for socials and some virtual events are going to be taking place over the next few weeks. We (also) hope to run career evenings where can have speakers from industry to ask questions and alumni to talk about their experiences, as well as normal socials like going out for drinks and meet ups.”
If you are a University of Newcastle student and are interested in joining the society, you can get in touch with Charlotte and Louisa using the society’s social media pages below:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/femeng.ncl?igshid=sj4ltu0b63ir
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FemEng.NCL/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/femengncl?s=11
Amelia Cutting
Image Courtesy of wenzlerdesign via Pixabay This image has in no way been altered. Image license is available here.
Amelia Cutting
I'm Amelia- a graduate from the University of Leeds and current NCTJ Level 5 Diploma student!