For GE Vernova’s Euan Kirrage, Eoin Trigg, and Harry Rosenbaum, mentoring young people and ensuring they have a positive experience early on in their career is a driving force. “One of the tricky things we discovered when joining the business three years ago was that the transition between university and your first full time job is quite challenging,” says Harry, a Mechanical Design Engineer with GE Vernova.
Euan, an HDVC Graduate Engineer, and Eoin, a Power Electronics Engineer, started mentoring Engineering Academy students in Staffordshire, U.K., with their design challenges for their last year in the program. For their final project, students had to identify an engineering problem within their communities and then develop a functional prototype solution with input from the people who would use the solution. Several students chose to solve challenges that would improve the experiences of people with disabilities. For instance, one of the teams built a 3D model for a playground accessible for children with disabilities—especially children who need wheelchairs. Volunteers focused more on supporting the engineering skills that students needed to achieve their project goals and the results that they could realistically achieve.
For the volunteers, seeing the dedication and resourcefulness that Academy students had was both gratifying and inspiring. “It was super rewarding to bring a group of people from just an idea they had in their head to actually creating and pitching a product,” says Eoin about his experience mentoring Next Engineers students through their final design challenge. For the volunteers, helping students build confidence and self-assurance in their projects was just as important as the result of the project itself.
“I think a big part of our volunteering experience was helping students build the confidence to say, ‘Yeah, I can actually go ahead and do this!’ and not get paralyzed by what they had to do to achieve their final project. It was important to let them work independently and nurture the skills they’d need once they got to university.”
—Euan Kirrage, HDVC Graduate Engineer at GE Vernova
Volunteering with Next Engineers allowed Eoin, Euan, and Harry to discover even more about their field and ensure that these young people had the experiences that the three of them might not have had when they were younger. “When I went to university, many of the people around me had learned the theoretical aspects of engineering, but didn’t have so much hands-on experience. Volunteering with Engineering Academy was an opportunity to make sure these kids did have the opportunity to use their skills in more real-life situations,” said Euan.
Given the fulfillment that mentoring youth brought into their lives, Eoin, Euan, and Harry began C³, an initiative that bridges the gap between universities and a long-term career with GE Vernova. The program seeks to help early-career engineers form meaningful professional relationships, foster inclusion, and ultimately serve as a support network for early-career professionals who are new to the full-time working world. For the founders, it was important to make sure these early-career engineers get involved in their field beyond simply fulfilling their daily job duties. They strongly encourage others to join STEM ambassador activities as well as the Next Engineers volunteer program to discover the value of volunteering within their field.
“We gave students exposure to what different engineering industries look like. Many of the girls in the classes never knew that engineering was so widely available to everyone, and it was amazing to see their reaction from that perspective.”
—Harry Rosenbaum, Mechanical Design Engineer at GE Vernova
