Try engineering

Professor Margaret Hyland, from the Engineering Department at the University of Auckland, “absolutely” recommends a career in engineering. Because engineers are well-trained thinkers that can help society, there is no reason why women should be put off from entering this field of work. Margaret firmly believes that engineering is definitely a profession for women.

Transcript

MARGARET HYLAND
I’d absolutely recommend a career in engineering. Engineering is the boundary between society and technology. It’s how we marry those two things. An engineering degree – you’re trained to think critically – you get a lot of technical knowledge, but you’re really trained to think, you’re trained to analyse problems, to solve complex problems, and you know you’re going to come across those in whatever you do. So that ability just to look at a situation, kind of analyse it, break it down and then work towards a solution, you can do that across a range of things. So engineers are really well trained thinkers.

Engineers are employed in many, many different areas and in New Zealand more so as we’re moving towards the knowledge economy and a more technically advanced society. So our engineers just get snapped up very, very quickly across all of the disciplines.

I think the women that are choosing to do engineering can see that it’s much more than just a technical discipline – that an engineer can help society – and the parents of the young women who are coming into engineering now can see the role of engineers and that engineering is definitely a profession for women.

Acknowledgements:
Professor Margaret Hyland, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Auckland
Dr Anh Tran
Dr Steven Matthews
Aaron Martin
Holster Engineering Ltd, Tokoroa
Dr Hayley Reynolds
Revolution Fibres Ltd
Alistair Cattanach
Claire Burnett