On 13th November 2024, the School of Engineering & Innovation hosted on online event for Open University students to celebrate National Engineering Day. This year’s theme of national engineering day was ‘Role Models’, and the event was organised by the School’s Women in Design and Engineering group. The aim of the event was to share motivation and experiences of working in Engineering in a way that all Open University engineering students can relate to and offered the opportunity to participate in two different interactive workshops.
The keynote speaker was Ivan MacTaggart, Head of Engineering: Systems & Digital at East West Rail who’s talk ‘From Dirt to Digital: reflections on a passion for engineering and a learning journey’ described his career in engineering, starting by joining the army straight from school aged 16 and serving an apprenticeship as a vehicle mechanic. While working in the army and later the engineering industry, Ivan completed a degree at the Open University and an MSc in Systems Engineering for Defence Capability at Cranfield University. More recently he has taken on senior engineering leadership roles in several companies. Ivan is a great supporter of the OU, serving on the Engineering Board of Studies and Industrial Advisory Board and currently studying for a part-time PhD with the OU. His fascinating talk described how he has developed his engineering career by continuously developing himself through lifelong learning. His learning experience is one that many OU students can relate to, fitting study in when the opportunity arose and overcoming the constraints of his personal circumstances. He explained how new qualifications and areas of studies opened new horizons for him and afforded him new career opportunities.
The second morning session was a panel discussion exploring inclusivity and diversity in the Engineering sector. The session was led by Silvia Varangnolo, Lecturer in Mechanical and Materials Engineering at the Open University with panellists Helen Lockett and Kim Littlewood, from the Open University, OU graduates Rebecca Solinger from Geosyntec Consultants and Ivan MacTaggart from East West Rail, and current OU Engineering student Stephanie Spruce. There was a lively and wide-ranging discussion on a range of topics including what inspired panel members to follow a career in engineering and their engineering role models, some of whom you can see in the picture.
The afternoon session started with a welcome from the Head of the School of Engineering and Innovation, Rachel Slater, followed by workshops including presentations about the benefits of joining professional engineering institutions from the Institution of Mechanical Engineering and the Institution of Engineering Technology, ‘what makes a good role model?’, how to choose a project for the engineering project modules and ‘what can the OU do for you?’, an opportunity to explore the barriers experiences by OU Engineering students.
The day finished with talks from Rebecca Solinger on the experience of working as woman in consulting, Georgina Hawkins from the OU careers and employability service and Shirley Cavin, Data Science Accelerator Lead and Advanced Certified Solution Architect at Leidos UK.
The event was attended by more than 50 OU students and feedback from the event was very positive with useful for suggestions from attendees for topics to be included in future events. You can catch up on all the sessions from the day on YouTube here:
Helen Lockett, Claudia Eckert and Fiona Gleed
Image sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr, https://www.eng.ed.ac.uk/about/people/prof-gordon-masterton, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace
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