| UOW student Rhyannon Ratz scored engineering successes in Paris UOW student Rhyannon Ratz scored engineering successes in Paris |
Rhyannon proves an engineering hit in Paris
10 Aug 2007 | Bernie Goldie
University of Wollongong budding engineer Rhyannon Ratz has won first prize as best student and the prize for writing the best journal at the course run by the International Institute of Women in Engineering in Paris.
This year’s course topic was “Women in Global Engineering: Creating an Energy Efficient Future”. Forty seven engineering students, male and female, from 17 countries attended the course.
Financial support for Rhyannon’s trip came from the Faculty of Engineering and from Study Abroad
During her three weeks in Paris she attended seminars by engineers from a range of countries and participated in three industry visits.
The main seminar material was on history and cultural dimensions of engineering, sustainability in engineering and business in different global regions, negotiation skills and women in engineering.
The industries that she visited were IBM France, Schlumberger and Peugeot. There were also other industry visits for groups of students to L’Oréal and Société Générale.
These industry visits gave an introduction to the different companies and allowed the students to talk with the engineers, particularly the women, and hear how they have developed their careers.
The faculty members also took the students on a tour of Sceaux Park (a public park designed to function sustainably) and the Musée des Arts et Métiers (a museum of engineering history and development).
Students also had to prepare three presentations and a reflective journal during the course. Each student prepared a personal poster presentation to introduce themselves and their country to the other course members.
They were also divided into area groups based on geographic region and energy groups made up of students from different regions. The area presentations were to research and present the origins and development of engineering and education in different regions of the world and how each country will approach engineering in the future.
“The energy assignment was to develop an area for a client that promoted energy efficiency and would be functional considering climatic uncertainty,” Rhyannon said.
“I felt that the course was very worthwhile for my engineering studies and it was a lot of fun. It was good to meet other young engineers from all parts of the world, to visit industries and hear from female engineers about their experiences in the engineering world.”
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