GHD rolls out STEM work experience program to female students in Wodonga

Global professional services company GHD offered the program in Wodonga for the first time as part of the company's STEM Pathways program.

GHD Wodonga, in partnership with North East Water, last week held site visits for the students to a wastewater treatment plant, a TVN On-Country visit and a virtual reality session at the GHD office as well as talks on engineering fields.

Students also worked on a mock project to install smart metering across North East Water's network including investigating the benefits, the disciplines needed for the investigation and assessment and the likely impacts on community.

Year 10 student Stella Salter said it was a valuable learning experience.

"After this week I have a really strong idea of what an engineer does day-to-day," she said.

"Engineering now feels very inviting because I'm familiar with the work environment."

For students Jessica Arnold and Morgan Ballintine, the guided site tour and the GHD Women in Science and Traffic and Transport talk were among the "cool" aspects.

"Seeing the giant tanks of water during the North East Water guided site tour and the forbidden Milo (the waste) were really cool," Jessica said.

"I was really interested in the ecology part of the presentations and all the female engineers provided really good information and made me interested in their jobs."

For Morgan, the number of disciplines within GHD surprised her.

"I liked seeing how everyone has such different areas of research within the same company," she said.

Zoe Stamp enjoyed the virtual reality session with our Digital Design team.

"I loved immersing myself in it and seeing how they use technology to relate to engineering," she said.

GHD's regional manager - Wodonga Michael Goode said the company wanted to show that studying and working in regional areas could lead to a rewarding career.

"Our company has been very intentional in supporting an increase in women's participation and contribution to the STEM workforce," he said.

"We're delighted to be running this program for the first time in Wodonga, extending what we've been offering in our Melbourne and Geelong office for many years.

"We're also proud that our local Wodonga team includes several examples of the wide range of careers and leadership opportunities available to women in this region, including Liz Tinlin, business group leader of our structures and bridges team, Emma Jones, team leader of our digital team, and Victoria Brown, acting business group leader of our traffic and transport team."

TVN On-Country managing director Jebb Hutchinson welcomed the program.

"It excites me to see young girls get the experience of this STEM program in a traditionally male-dominated industry," he said.

"I encourage all students to pursue your dreams and careers and explore the wide range of opportunities out there."

Launched in 2017, GHD's STEM Pathways Program gives year 10 females exposure to a range of consulting services and technical disciplines.

The program aims to help address the lack of gender diversity in the sector by focusing on overcoming the barriers hindering early attraction of young students into STEM-related fields.

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