Mar 25, 2024
Women who aspire to work in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields face unique challenges. Langara’s 49Women in Science program focuses on helping break down the barriers many of our students will encounter as they follow their science dreams by offering financial assistance, mentorship, and opportunities of connection.
In 2021, the Engineering Transfer program launched a special mentorship program to support our students as they prepare for engineering education and careers. The Tri-Mentoring program matches a current female student with a recent alum who transferred to university to continue their education, and an industry professional. Twenty five trios have benefited from the opportunity over the last 3 years.
“When I first explored engineering as a career, I found it quite difficult to select my area of interest. There are so many options to choose from that it all felt like stumbling around in the dark. The Tri-Mentoring program, however, was a light switch”, shared Zoe Robertson, alum (2020) who started the program at Langara after a 15-year career as a violinist and is now completing her Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering at UBC.
Zoe added that the program offers the opportunity to have her career questions addressed by industry mentors while sharing her recent experience of transferring to university with current Langara students. This month concludes Zoe’s third year participating in the program. “The fact that the project is centered around women in the field also allowed room for questions about gender equity that I felt were not addressed in other mentorship programs I have participated in.”
“When I first explored engineering as a career, I found it quite difficult to select my area of interest. There are so many options to choose from that it all felt like stumbling around in the dark. The Tri-Mentoring program, however, was a light switch.”
The best advice she shared with young professionals joinin
g the industry was to take advantage of the co-op programs. Zoe particularly enjoyed how they teach resume and interview skills, facilitate industry connections, and most importantly the work experiences. Through the program, she was able to experiment with a range of engineering specializations, which allowed her to follow her curiosity and decide which areas were best suited for her.
It was reflecting on those various challenges that Langara invited alum (2003) Anja Lanz to bring her knowledge about different mentorship programs to the Engineering team to create the Tri-Mentoring. “We created a great partnership of different worlds coming together to design something new for Langara, which now successfully has bloomed into a solid program for many more mentorship relationships to come.”
If you’d like to become a mentor in the program or learn more about 49Women in Science, please connect with us at foundation@langara.ca.