Engineering Education Scheme
Industrial companies and qualified people with an array of knowledge and experience can play an important role in inspiring young people into choosing careers in STEM.
The Engineering Education Scheme encourages Year 12 students to recognise the importance of science and engineering by providing an opportunity to gain useful skills and experience by working on a challenging project in partnership with industry. The students involved are those high flyers who will be tomorrow's leaders of industry.
The scheme provides a launch, a three-day residential university workshop and a celebration and assessment day for participating students, teachers and company representatives within Sussex.
How it works
A professional scientist or engineer from a company works with a team of up to four high-ability Year 12 students and their teacher over a period of five to six months. They work as a team on a real industrial problem for which the company needs a solution.
The students who participate are those studying Maths at AS Level with accompanying subjects such as Science, Technology, Business Studies, Economics, ICT etc.
There is a formal Scheme Launch in October involving seminars and activities including team work, problem solving and project management.
In December or January the teams attend a three-day university Residential Workshop where the project is progressed with the assistance of university personnel and resources.
The Scheme culminates in a high profile Celebration and Assessment Day (CAD) in April when the projects are assessed by teams of eminent professional engineers.
Benefits for your company and link engineer:
- Potential financial savings from successful projects
- Early contact and involvement with potential future graduate workforce
- Early contact and involvement with potential future technician workforce
- A raised profile within the community
- Opportunities to assess companies' own training and career structure
- Development of project management skills in company graduate engineers
- The opportunity to strengthen education/industry links and enhance teachers' knowledge of engineering
- Improvement in the quality of engineering students and graduates by encouraging enthusiasm at an early stage.
What your company provides:
- A suitable engineering project
- An engineer to act as a mentor to the team of four students
- An opportunity for the students to visit the company premises and see the problem in context
- Engineering mentor attendance at the Scheme Launch, university Residential Workshop and the Celebration and Assessment Day
- A financial contribution towards each project.
Benefits for students:
- Interview, teamwork and project management experience
- Training in communication and presentation skills
- Extension of AS / A2 Level studies to a real life practical problem
- Meet high ability students from a variety of schools/colleges and backgrounds
- Experience of university life
- Exposure to diversity and variety of engineering, thereby raising awareness of possible career opportunities.
For more information contact STEM Sussex.
