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Campus Media and Shell’s Women in Engineering and Technology Event

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article 35 image

We hosted an event in London to inspire young female University students to pursue a career in these typically male-dominated industries.

As part of their movement to help more women into the Technology and Engineering industries, Shell partnered up with Campus Media to host a collaborative event that aimed to inform, inspire and equip female University students for a career in these industries. The event was held at the Science Museum in South Kensington with 200 students in attendance.

To achieve our event objectives, we hosted a panel session from representatives of leading companies who were at the event followed by two skills sessions. The final section of the day was allocated to speed networking. In this system, students are grouped and allocated nine minutes at each company’s exhibition stand before moving on to the next one. This ensured that students interacted with every company and gave them the chance to gain some industry insight and advice from a range of professionals. Afterwards, they could return to any representatives that they wished to continue conversations with.

Our event was sponsored by companies supporting the Women in Engineer & Technology initiative. Each had an exhibition stand and representatives that spoke to students considering a career in these industries, hoping to inspire more female students to apply. Our sponsors were:

  • Shell (Headline Sponsor)
  • BP
  • Morgan Sindall
  • MBDA
  • Rolls-Royce
  • Mott Macdonald
  • Jaguar Land Rover
  • Caterpillar
  • Arcadis
  • GSK

Timeline of the day:

At 1pm a steady stream of students were coming through to the event space in the awe-inspiring London Science Museum and eagerly anticipating the day ahead. Our team greeted all of the students as they arrived, then made sure they were registered and got them seated ready for the event! By 1:30pm the hall was seated with an enthusiastic audience of 200 female students. They were welcomed by Shell employee Ann Collins, detailing her experiences as a woman in the Energy industry and her inspirational journey to becoming a Vice President.

Next, at 2pm, was the panel session. Our panel was made up of five professional women, ranging in seniority from graduate engineers to VPs. They discussed the gendered stereotypes of engineering and used their wealth of experience to answer questions from the audience.

At 2:30pm employees from Shell and MBDA took to the stage and gave tips on how graduates could impress in their interviews. Then everyone paired up to utilise what they had just learned with some practice questions.

At 3pm, the second skills session began. It focused on assessment centres, particularly presentations and group exercises, and the women advised students to network with their assessors during breaks and to not worry too much about being nervous as it’s perfectly normal! After this, the students were given a short break to get a drink and a snack.

By 3:40pm the speed networking session was in full flow. Each student had been assigned a number earlier in the day that indicated which group they were in. Then every nine minutes a klaxon would go off and the groups would move around the room, which gave each group the opportunity to network with all of our exhibitors.

After the speed networking finished at 5pm the students had an hour of ‘free networking’, in which they could return to any company stands if they wished to do so.

At 6pmthe day drew to a close and the atmosphere was extremely positive.

Anoushka, who is a Geo Physics student at Imperial College London, commented: “I came here to see what it is like as a woman in engineering. I interned at an engineering company in my second year and there were not many women there at all. I wanted to see organisations that understand the lack of women in this industry. I want to be successful at a young age and events like this make me realise that it is possible.”

Celeste, also a Geo Physics student at Imperial College London added: “I came here for interview preparation, I’ve never had an interview for anything that isn’t a retail job and I feel very unprepared. This event has made things much clearer for me and made me realise there is so much more I can do with my CV.”

Our Campus Media team thoroughly enjoyed hosting the event and connecting talented STEM female students to employers. It facilitated some useful conversations around Women in STEM and we look forward to working on more campaigns like this in the future. If you’d like to get in touch with us about this event or any that could take place in the future, please contact us here.

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