Institution news
Tackling the need for relevant, contemporary careers advice,
MyBigCareer works with school students from disadvantaged backgrounds, many of whom are keen to become engineers.
The charity is seeking engineers to volunteer their time to be mentors, speakers or sponsors.
The charity’s founder, Deborah Streatfield, is a careers consultant. Her experience in both independent and state education sectors led her to question how disadvantaged young people, without family and friends in the professions, can successfully identify a career – from medicine to law and engineering – find a work placement or study place, and move out of poverty.
The students she works with attend schools where pupil premium funding and free school meals are well above average; there is a high proportion of young people from minority and disadvantaged backgrounds; and careers advice is almost non-existent.
She said: “We have children in many schools across the country who are keen to know more about engineering, but no outlets through which to inform and engage them. We are looking for mentors, speakers, companies and events through which we can match young people to the range of careers in engineering. They have no funds for travel, no family or social connections, and they often encounter prejudice, but they are as entitled to succeed as any of their peers.”
Deborah says successful participation by people in medicine and business, for example, can be replicated by engineering companies and individual engineers.
Through MyBigCareer, mentors from the Royal College of Surgeons have supported
applicants to medical school by holding mock interviews, in order to help students prepare for highly competitive formal interviews and arrive on a more equal footing with other candidates. They have also mentored students through monitored email correspondence, coaching them on goal-setting, recognising and building on success.
Rachel Howes, a surgical trainee and mentor for MyBigCareer, feels that a mentor relationship had a significant positive impact on her early career and progression.
She said: “In my opinion, MyBigCareer provides an important link for current professionals to the new generation of young minds that will join and eventually replace them, and it is within our power to guide them and help streamline the journey.”
Originally working with schools in East London, MyBigCareer has been featured in the
press, on
BBC News and Radio 4’s
Today programme, and is now representing schools in many areas across the UK. It facilitates one-to-one careers advice as well as large,
volunteer-led careers advice sessions. The charity works with politicians including Matthew Hancock MP and Meg Hillier MP. It is soon to pilot unpaid work experience placements with 43 GP practices in Hackney and the City of London.
Peter Finegold, the Institution’s Head of Education and Skills, said that historically, engineering has helped many talented young people from humble backgrounds to thrive and succeed. The success of MyBigCareer highlights the real value of meaningful career guidance as the engine of social mobility – described in the Institution’s recently published report,
Social Mobility and the Engineering Profession.
Peter said: “MyBigCareer illustrates the value of supporting young students on a journey to becoming confident and informed contributors to society – and ultimately to a fulfilling working experience.”
If you can help enable students from disadvantaged backgrounds to consider a career in engineering, whether as a mentor, a speaker or sponsor, either by correspondence or in person, please fill in the contact us form on the
MyBigCareer.org website.