Cambridge Engineering Summer Course

Hi there! My name is Siobhan and I am a fourth-year chemical engineering student at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. I am delighted to announce that I have been given an amazing opportunity to go do a short course in engineering with Oxford Summer Courses in the UK over July. I am so excited, completely overwhelmed and a bit astounded. It's a summer school course based at Cambridge which specializes in sustainability in engineering and the key principles around sustainable engineering design. The only catch is the money; it’s expensive, and so I am appealing to you all.

There are two key things in this world that I am quite passionate about: sustainable development and feminism. This course is centered around sustainable engineering concepts and what it means to be an engineer and build structures, processes and technology that does not compromise our planet. This is such an important issue that we all face and I think this course will help me gain engineering skills pertinent to other engineering degrees, not just chemical engineering, and teach me how to better tackle these issues from an engineering design perspective. An important skill I feel is necessary in engineering is how to think in a way that is best to solve a problem and after speaking to the people who run the course on the phone, it sounds like this is what they are aiming to accomplish in this time.

In another aspect, although this course does not directly advocate for women in STEM fields, I feel particularly encouraged to try and raise the funds for this course because I feel acknowledged and validated by those who run this course that I should and can be an engineer. When they phoned me to congratulate my acceptance, they said to me that “after reading my motivation for doing this course, I am exactly what they are looking for”. I wasn’t going to go through with it initially until Charlotte, the lady on the phone, said that. I feel recognized as a young woman who is nearly an engineer, who wants to bring about change in the world, both in advocating for women and fighting climate change, and that is important to me.

So after all that, I hope you can see my vision in doing this course. Now to the gritty details: I need to raise £3500 by the 30th April or else my deposit will be lost along with my place. The goal set here is to account for the GoFundMe fees. I am strangely confident that this will happen and I have faith that this will be an extraordinary time. I'd be grateful for any donation however large or small. 

Thank you!
Siobhan