Virtual Sample Studies in engineering for girls

Virtual tours, exciting lectures on engineering topics, discussion groups and student laboratories awaited a group young women at the RWTH Aachen University's “Sample Studies in Engineering for Girls”, accompanied by the Cluster of Excellence IoP. This year the event took place from July 20-24, and took place entirely online, relying on virtual offers for the participants.

In addition to the comprehensive range of activities offered by the student advisory service at the start of the week, the trial course was devoted to the numerous facets that an engineering degree can go into and thus provided impulses for helping the students decide on their individual focus and preferred subjects to study at university. An "all-round overview" of the many topics and possibilities also provided an insight into the interdisciplinary research world of our Cluster of Excellence. Dr. Matthias Brockmann not only gave a "one-time tour of the campus", but of course also introduced the young women to the various exciting core research topics of the Cluster of Excellence relating to digitization in the production technology of tomorrow. This was followed up by IoP scientist Melanie Buchsbaum from the WZL with her lecture and virtual tour through the "Smart Automation Lab" at the WZL with clear application examples from the field of automation technology and human-robot collaboration.

The student laboratory roboscope workshop on the first day offered the opportunity to get involved and get up close and personal with Aachen technology. During the week, a virtual visit to Research Centrum Jülich followed, including a round of talks with female scientists about various thematic lectures (steel construction, raw materials and disposal technology, materials technology). A get-together with other RWTH students in particular gave the students the opportunity to ask questions about everyday study life, making a living as a student, social opportunities or experience abroad and career prospects, enabling the young women to receive advice and listen to stories of experienced students.