Dd 12 wants to be an engineer.. What should we be encouraging?

[Explodingatomickittens]

Dd wants to be an engineer. She loves drawing, designing & creating. Since she was very small she loved trying to discover how things work. She loves maths & anything involving STEM..
Is engineering in the broad sense a good career & how do we help her? I know she's young & may change her mind a million times but we want to encourage her the best we can...

Female role modelling and mentoring is huge for girls in STEM.

Stemettes and Women in STEM have a lot of resources to share about female engineers etc.

Depending on location, some of the big engineering projects in the country currently (HPC, HS2) are doing a lot with local schools.

I asked my engineer friend this for my niece. He said take up climbing as a hobby (if she can) as apparently lots of engineers climb and he has found it useful for informal networking?!

Or watersports ... our sailing/windsurfing club had loads of engineers of various sorts. Some of them were very encouraging to DD when they became aware of her aspirations. (Lots of engineering and physics in these sports too!)

Very true about the climbing @ThreeFeetTall

Take her to the Science Museum, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the National Space Centre in Leicester, vintage steam railways, motor museums, Beamish, anything like that.

Teach her draughts, battleships, noughts & crosses, card games, Connect 4, Mastermind, chess, Solitaire, there are loads of games which need critical thinking and an analytical mind.

Let her have fun with it.

Or cycling/mountain biking or scuba diving.

Possibly because engineers are well educated so can appreciate the benefits of good health and fitness and relatively well paid so can afford the equipment to undertake such hobbies, often more than one of them?

As others have said, what type of engineering? My DH is a civil engineer, but works closely with structural engineers, and water engineers, most of whom qualified in civ eng at uni. Then we've other friends who are mechanical engineers and chemical engineers. All are slightly different skill sets, but I'd say maths is the key subject, and for civils you'd likely need physics as well.
Problem solving is a key skill too.

I work in an allied discipline and there's a continuing push to get women into engineering. The Institution of Civil Engineers had their first female president a year or so ago, which was big news for the industry.

Re hobbies/clubs,robotics can be good as it's an accessible mix of mechanics, electronics and software. DD helped run the school(yeah, girls' grammar) Vexx robotics club when she was in the sixth form.

Doing a DT subject and/or comp sci GCSEs may be good in due course. I'm not sure what they're like now post reform, dd was just in the old letter grades era. She did CS and electronics DT - the latter was good, and the thing she built for her project was used for her Arkwright submission. Her Arkwright award provided funds which were useful for her 'artefact' EPQ designing and building a robot. ... this is the sort of example of how things can develop.

Engineering covers huge fields but maths and physics are usually the key subjects. I didn't do engineering at uni but work in the field of engineering and there is definitely an increasing need for good computer literacy, coding skills etc. I think the main reason I didn't do engineering as a degree mainly because of an uncertainty around what it entailed and a subject I'd done at A level felt more familiar and a safer option. I agree with PP about getting used to being in a minority/ only female among men - if you're a girly girl you might find it hard to fit in at the workplace.

@larchforest Lots of small local museums too, especially if you're in an area where there is/was a lot of heavy industry. For example, you've reminded me about when I went to the calderdaleindustrial.co.uk/

Where I saw a temporary exhibition about 'The Life and Times of Laura Annie Willson MBE' – a Suffragette, Engineer, Director of a Halifax Machine Tool Company (Lathes), a Founder of the Women's Engineering Society, House Builder and First Woman Member of the Federation of House Builders'

historicengland.org.uk/content/docs/education/explorer/qa-case-study-calderdale-industrial-museum/

If you're in the north, the Manchester museum of science and industry is great (well... hopefully will be again when they've finished revamping it). DD spent a lot of time there during her childhood.

At some point - a bit older than 12 maybe - I'd recommend anyone with an interest in engineering gets a Wondrium subscription and watches anything by Stephen Ressler. Informative and entertaining.

If you google open university free courses there is a science maths & technology section which has loads of different engineering topics to work through. Might give her a flavour of which direction she would like to go in.

At this point, perhaps we should note she doesn't have to do all of these things!

stemettes.org/

Keep an eye out for ‘work experience’ opportunities. She’s likely a few years away from that but we take a group of work experience pupils (around 20 kids) from across the city for a one week, in office experience each year. They have an engineering based scenario to work through as teams during the week, interspersed with talks from people from all the different teams. So they get to hear from civil engineers, structural engineers, maritime engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, process engineers, project managers, project controls, CAD and BIM specialists, GIS specialists, ecologists, architects, geotechnical engineers, bridge engineers, highway engineers, human factors specialists, chemical engineers…the list goes on and on…we are a large consultancy with so many teams and experts. It doesn’t matter if the students have no idea what they want to be, they get a taste of so many aspects of STEM. I’m sure other companies do similar. But given it’s only around 20 slots for an entire city worth of schools, it’s pretty competitive to get the opportunity. So worth looking ahead to that in the future if she’s still interested.

I've worked with some senior academics in engineering. One played the piano to a good level and was passionate about classical music. Another was really into experimental theatre. Another (female) does ballet regularly. What I'm saying is that it doesn't have to be a STEM overload from now on. Being well rounded and interested in lots of things is a massive benefit when it comes to problem solving, networking and public speaking.

She initially took the relevant A levels, then dropped one, then swapped one to a different subject. She’s gone from saying all through school that she wanted to be a doctor, and the parents paying out to fulfill that, to now doing 2 A levels and having no interest whatsoever in medicine. The college threatened to Chuck her out for only doing 2, but somehow she’s still there.

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Have a look at these sites, alongside talking to your own family and friend's network and find out if they are linked to engineering companies and roles, as a great way to start the conversation and make links for work shadowing and placements in the future. Here's the sites that are amongst those worth a look and there are so many more, as often a real focus on getting women into engineering. www.stem.org.uk/secondary/careers/mentoring / www.wes.org.uk/ / www.ucas.com/explore/subjects/engineering-and-technology / raeng.org.uk/ /

Both my DDs are STEM. Eldest is a biochemist. I think there are far more women in that than in the more Physics end.

DD2 is at the much more Physics end and in her particular field there aren't that many people of any description though what few there are are predominantly male.

Always the maths. Its the basis of everything and as others have said the ability to crunch the numbers and understand them opens other doors. Physics maybe.

Keep it fun for now, then when she is older try to get her to tailor her interests into type of engineering/industry. They are very different, with very different work environments. I'm a materials engineer, with a civil engineer brother and an electrical engineer husband and our working lives are very different!

Also seriously consider apprenticeship vs degree. Apprenticeship is great for someone much more hands on, with an interest in aspecific industry. But a degree is much more theoretical and you come out with a better understanding of the pure subject, but have to then tailor that knowledge more for industry, but are more flexible to change industry in future.

But above all encourage her! It's a fantastic career choice with so much opportunity

Great choice! I'm an engineer and I'd say maths, physics and general science... but as others have said there are many different types so just make sure she has fun and she'll find her way. Plenty of opportunities out there for girls!

Ooh yes re board games my engineer undergraduate son loves a strategic board game (so risk, chess, rummikub) and I definitely think it’s helped his skills.

Was about to mention them as well.