I’m writing this mid week because on today and Friday we’re launching our latest program at the Ballarat Tech School called STEM Academy. The first edition is focused on Engineering but we plan to have one each for science, technology and maths which will be developed over the next few years.
It’s been super exciting to be part of this new program from its very beginning. With over 42 students, 10 engineers and a site visit over the next two days we’re expecting a very action packed schedule and it’s all been carefully orchestrated down to the very last detail. Having now been backstage, behind the scenes, I have so much more appreciation for how much work goes into an event like this. Shout out to people behind Future Shapers!
I quite like event management. It's right up my alley of being super organising and I especially love trying to figure out how to make the experience more interesting or engaging for our students. You have to problem solve on the fly, adapt quickly, all whilst looking like whatever is happening is exactly what you had planned. It's a very creative role and I get to carry around a clip board which is the height of professionalism if you ask my 8 year old daughter.
One of the things I’ve LOVED about this whole experience is leaning into the power of networking. If you think I’m good at it you should see my colleague and the program’s co-ordinator Kirstyn. She takes networking to a whole new level and it's done the old fashioned way. It’s shaking hands when you meet someone. It’s going out of your way to remember people's names. It’s in-person. It’s real life. None of this genuine connection is made online, in fact, I don’t even think Kirstyn has a linkedIN account.
This style of authentic connection is so powerful. It meant that Kristyn was able to get 8 practicing engineers to be mentors to our budding engineer students this morning. The main objective of the whole STEM Academy is to expose students to as many different types of engineers as possible. Engineers aren’t known as being the most outgoing people in the group but all of them did an amazing job of talking to our students about what they did for a job and most importantly, how and why they became engineers in the first place.
Sharing the human stories behind the job descriptions is incredibly important for our young people to hear. We want them to understand that there are countless ways to become an engineer and you also don’t need to know what you want to be when you grow up now. Most of our engineers started in one area and moved to another. All of them mentioned the importance of communication and collaboration.
Lots of the students we have are super smart but not all of them are comfortable meeting new people. This is where I come in. Soft skills are what I bring to the table. It's always so wonderful to see the transition of shy awkward kids at the beginning of the day to the buzz of excited and energetic conversations happening as we wrap up for the day.
I love it! Just as well I do because it's so very exhausting! I think I’ve apologised to my teacher friends before for not appreciating the amount of energy it takes to run a class but I’m beat after Day 1! Tomorrow we’re off to Haymes paint to do a tour with our students. Kirstyn and I have been out to visit the Haymes team twice and they’ve been so welcoming and are super excited to show our students their new factory.
Again, we wouldn’t be able to get such awesome buy-in if we hadn’t been willing to go out and meet with the Haymes team in person. In my opinion, it shows that we’re grateful for their time and energy if we offer them our time and energy in return. Hopefully we inspire students to consider a career in STEM or at the very least, get a few more work experience applicants for Haymes.
