Imagine this: You are standing in a classroom about to deliver a STEM workshop on encouraging a new generation of students to consider a career in engineering, and you look around the room to see a large group of male students, with a few female students sitting at the back. This isn't a scene from the 1970s, '80s or even '90s but it is one I experienced in the past year, so why hasn't the mix of male and female students who feel engineering is for them changed over the decades? "Why don't you start a network yourself?" When my Mum made this remark as a throwaway comment on a long drive home, I began to realise that I couldn't think of a reason why I couldn't start a network. One of the things I have enjoyed the most about Leonardo's Graduate Scheme is the fact that you are actively encouraged to go out into the community to deliver STEM outreach in local schools. After having been on Leonardo's Graduate Scheme for one year, I was offered the chance to be the local RAeS Branch Young Persons' Network Representative (YPN). This role would allow me to create my own ways of reaching out to students and young people in my local community. I was then in a position to start building an event, making sure that the message we were broadcasting was 'YOUNG WOMEN, WE NEED YOU IN STEM!'. This is how AeroWomen21 was born.
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