“It was a privilege to attend the Guess My Job Careers Event at St Martin's School and meet with students from Year 1 to 6. I was connected to this opportunity through Inspiring the Future an organisation which has partnered with JE’s Skills team, endorsed by my wonderful colleague Dawn Hodgson. Inspiring the Future connects volunteers from a variety of professions (not just STEM!) to volunteer opportunities in local schools to give kids exposure to different career options and challenge their beliefs about who they can be when they grow up.
“During the visit, students had a bingo card of careers. They had to ask indirect questions to figure out what each adult visitor’s job was. Popular questions I was asked were “what do you wear to work”, “what colour is your hard hat”, “where do you work, “do you fix things?” and “do you get to use computers?”.
“Once they figured out that I was an engineer, they had even more questions! “What is an engineer?”, “What does an engineer do?”, “Where does our electricity come from?” (mostly France). “What kind of special equipment do we have at La Collette to make our own electricity?”, “What do you think this part of the cable does?” (pointing at steel reinforcement layer of submarine cables), “What do you think a cable is for?” (transporting electricity), and “What does an engineer look like?”
“It’s a lot of fun speaking with students, many of whom get quite excited to see the large cables lying under the street and in the sea. Our cross-section models of the Normandie 1 submarine cable and a 90kV land cable sample were popular, and students remarked upon how heavy these were. We looked at a map of Jersey, Guernsey and France to see how our submarine cables are connected, which really brought the scale of the electricity network on their island to life for them.
“When I visit schools, I am often reminded of the phrase “you cannot be what you cannot see”. It is important to me to provide a lesser-seen example of what a STEM professional looks like, particularly as someone whose identity and appearance doesn’t fit the long-typical image of an “engineer”. I want young people (and teachers!) to see that careers and knowledge don’t have to be gendered. Boys and girls alike can find joy in STEM and problem solving. The world is their oyster, and all kids deserve the opportunity to discover how much fun engineering can be.”
