The YGN attended the Engineering Your Future Events in North West England, spread across 5 locations:
- Liverpool (Liverpool Football Club)
- Preston (Grasshoppers Rugby Club)
- Manchester (Siemens HQ, Manchester)
- Warrington (Halliwell Jones Stadium)
- Manchester MMU (MMU Campus, Manchester)
Each “EYF day” consists of approximately 100 16-18yr old students + teachers from the local area attending 5 sessions providing insights into Mechanical, Civil, Electrical/Electronic and Chemical Engineering; each workshop session lasts approximately 40 minutes. The sessions are designed to be practical and interactive and provide an insight into life as a professional Engineer. Finally there is a lunchtime "Marketplace" offering more information on ‘Routes into Engineering’, where the YGN hosted a stand to allow the students to ask question about routes into industry, different kind of jobs, etc.
Below is a more detailed account of some of the events.
The event was attended by students from local schools in the area, many of whom engaged with our lunchtime stall to find out more about the Nuclear Institute, the YGN, Women in Nuclear and opportunities in the nuclear industry in general. Many of the students there had already decided which STEM subjects they would be studying in the future and were interested to find out about the different ways into the industry whether that be through apprenticeships, graduate programmes, or direct entry. We found that many of the students had a genuine interest in career opportunities in the industry and asked questions about the main challenges in nuclear and where the industry was heading in the future. We also had the opportunity to talk about our careers and how one of us had ended up in the industry with a less conventional background in Geology!
The day was pretty busy when all students who have the interest in or already chosen STEM subjects came in during lunchtime. Our stand was displayed as attached photo, which had been recognised by the students as the best stand (mainly because of those attractive give-out and useful brochures that NI and Wood provided!). There were indeed attracting many students who came around and talk to us. We realised most of them have chosen Chemical/Physic/Computer science related subjects as their most favourite subjects in school, at which point we introduced that the Nuclear Industry offer a wide range of opportunities for them to start their career before and after the study in university.
By chatting with some academic stands nearby from University of Manchester, University of Central Lancashire afterwards, it seem our stand did impress quite a few students as we received many questions about Nuclear-related Courses.
The Exhibition part of the Careers Event lasted for approximately 1.5 hours from 12:00 mid-day to around 1:30pm.
It was very refreshing to talk to the students from the 4 schools and colleges as a large number of the students had a reasonable amount of knowledge of Nuclear Engineering and a number of them wanted to know the best way forward to apply to get involved into the nuclear industry.
We responded by telling them that there is a number of ways to be able to enter the industry:
- Serving an apprenticeship/degree through a company,
- Going to one of the specialist university to take a degree in Nuclear Physics/Engineering then applying to one of the many companies working within the nuclear industry.
Many of the students took one of our volunteer's business card and said they would be enquiring for either an apprenticeship or look to take an undergraduate position with the company to enable them to gain education experience through a scholarship.
The YGN would like to thank Wood Nuclear, North West Projects (NWP), NIS and the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) for their support hosting the YGN stand.