Report from Valentina Cabitza
In December last year I was sponsored by Inverell East Rotary to attend the Honeywell Engineering Summer School Program held in Sydney. I stayed at a college at Macquarie University and was able to get a taste of university life. To begin the week, we participated in engineering ice-breaker activities and trivia nights that were held to let us get to know students from other schools. A big thing they pushed was the idea that being an engineer involved a lot of team work. So throughout the week we worked with a team of 10 students, with similar interests in engineering disciplines.
Each day consisted of a University tour and a site visit. We visited the University of New South Wales, the University of Sydney, the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Wollongong, where we were introduced to their engineering programs and participated in various engineering hands on activities that the university had planned for us.
To see all these universities was a very valuable experience because as a rural student, opportunities like this are limited and it was great to see what I’m working towards. The site visits we went on were a great way to see the application of engineering degrees in real life. We visited Bluescope Steel in Wollongong, ANSTO Nuclear Research and development plant, the RAAF Base at Lidcombe, where we were able to see engineering in the ADF, and SITA waste recycling plant which was very interesting as it showed how environmental engineers play a role in waste management.
On the final day we had a careers talk where we were able to sit and speak with engineers about their field of engineering and how they got to where they are today. This provided a clearer direction for my future career options. Through this experience I was able to meet many like-minded people and I am now planning to do an engineering degree once I finish school as I really enjoy maths and science.
