Female students urged to choose engineering
IT Sligo is urging female students to engineer their future and consider a career in engineering.
With low numbers of women choosing to study engineering across the country, IT Sligo is planning different ways to encourage women to consider a career in the field.
One of the events being held as part of IT Sligo’s Engineers Week, which runs from February 24 to March 2, is a ‘Women in Engineering Coffee Morning’.
This is a networking opportunity for both female engineers and students from across the region to meet each other and discuss how to encourage more women into the profession. It is hoped that ideas discussed will be progressed by a specially-formed group following the event.
The Institute is already leading by example in this area with two senior positions in the School of Engineering & Design held by women: Úna Parsons, Head of School of Engineering & Design and Marion McAfee, who was recently announced as Acting Head of Mechanical & Electronic Engineering.
Úna Parsons, Head of School of Engineering & Design at IT Sligo, said:
“I encourage female students to engineer their future and consider a career in engineering. In the past, the medical profession was dominated by males and we see over recent decades how that has totally changed.
“My vision is that we have a similar change in the engineering profession. There are so many fascinating options to a career in engineering — we want to change perceptions that it is mainly for males.”
Marion McAfee, Acting Head of Mechanical & Electronic Engineering at IT Sligo, said:
“Engineering is a fantastic, varied career with real challenges and you have the opportunity to actively make solutions in a variety of areas covering everything from roads to medical devices and self-driving cars. Engineers Week is a great opportunity for members of the public to see what a career in engineering involves.
“Engineers drive economic growth, so Ireland really needs more engineers. Recruiters are struggling to get enough skilled engineers and with few women entering the field the talent pool is restricted.”
“Sligo is a medical and pharmaceutical hub so students going into these engineering fields will have lots of opportunity to find work locally.
“There are great jobs available for engineers both locally, nationally and internationally. An engineering degree is your passport to the world,” said Dr McAfee.
The ‘Women in Engineering Coffee Morning’ is being organised by Saritha Unnikrishnan, who joined IT Sligo as a part-time assistant lecturer and is currently doing a PhD in computational data modelling and machine learning at IT Sligo.