Making Work Work: Summer STEM week for female students

• Education
• Gender Equality
• Healthy_Communities
• Healthy_Business
• Employment and Skills
• Diversity and Inclusion

To inspire young women from diverse backgrounds to consider engineering as a career choice, Hydrock hosted a STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) focused summer placement week.

About Hydrock

Hydrock is an engineering design, energy and sustainability consultancy working in the built environment sector.

It’s purpose is to be a force for good. The company’s impact is in shaping places, communities and infrastructure to be climate resilient, sustainable and of value to their users and owners.

The issue

Hydrock hosted a week-long STEM-focused summer placement for eight young women. Aged between 14-18 years old they came from diverse backgrounds and schools in south Wales. The programme introduced the students to the concept of the workplace, and what engineering looks like as a career.

Led by Hydrock’s Early Careers Coordinator from their People Team, the initiative reached out to a wide range of schools, with students committing a week of their summer holiday to attend. The programme became more powerful because the students did not know each other when they first arrived for work at Hydrock’s Cardiff office.

Delivered by some of Hydrock’s female engineers, the week was structured around a series of workshops that rotated through the consultancy’s different practice areas. For example, the students experienced how to design a new future community from a perspective of energy and sustainability requirements.

Working with Business in the Community

Through Hydrock’s membership of Business in the Community (BITC), the company has drawn on BITC’s experience and advice on structuring an effective outreach programme for schools.

Recognising the importance of reaching schools in more disadvantaged and racially diverse areas around the company’s office network, BITC has helped Hydrock establish a strategy and communications programme to reach these types of schools.

BITC’s advice helped to shape the programme into a week-long set of activities which offered the students a much more immersive experience in the world of work.

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