I volunteered to help the University with its ‘Your Life‘ campaign pledge. This is a government initiative to increase the numbers of young people going into STEM subjects. As part of this campaign I attended the working group round table discussion. This was very interested as there were representatives from other universities and all were sharing good practice. These are informal notes from the day:
- Update on the Your Life Campaign: An agency has been commissioned to begin an advertising campaign for 14-16 year olds to encourage them to take STEM.
- There was emphasis given to mechanical engineering in this meeting.
- Sheffield University have said that they have changed the names of their courses and there has been an amazing affect e.g. chemical engineering with architecture (the with is something that is related to people). They have also taken out the physics requirement.
- Sheffield have a senior academic on the faculty management (same level as Michael Butler) who has the role of ‘Faculty Director of Women in Engineering’ She spends 20% of her time on this role.
- They also offer scholarships for female students for their MSc.
- More female students than male students on open days.
- As well as scholarships for conversion courses e.g. English graduates who want to do a conversion in computing.