WiE CAN: engineer a career
In January next year, 60 Year 13 students from across Aotearoa New Zealand will discover the career opportunities engineering has to offer women when they attend a hands-on programme run by the University of Canterbury (UC).
Applications are open now for the Women in Engineering Canterbury (WiE CAN) residential programme 2021, which will feature a range of interactive workshops, inspirational presentations and fun social activities.
“Engineering is big, there’s so many really interesting areas you can get into. The aim of WiE CAN is to give the students a flavour of each discipline in a fun and exciting way,” explains Electrical and Computer Engineering Lecturer Kim Rutter, Academic Lead of the WiE CAN programme.
“We get the students working together in teams for activities and challenges, which is a really important part of engineering – we work with other people to solve problems. And it also means if the students come to UC they already have a support system. When they walk into a room for the first time, they will recognise someone.”
Rutter says the WiE CAN programme is part of UC’s commitment to boosting the number of female graduates and increasing diversity in engineering.
“Engineering as a profession needs to be more diverse in all areas. If you get one group of people who all think the same looking at a problem, you’re probably going to get a certain set of solutions. If the group is more diverse, you’ll get a better set of solutions,” she says.