High school girls participating in the WATCH+ program got acquainted with the courses and programs available at the Technical Faculty of the University of Debrecen on Tuesday. The aim of this nationally unique initiative is to encourage as many young women as possible to choose a technical career path.
In Hungary, fewer women are employed in technical fields than the European Union average. Agóra Tudományos Élményközpont and NI Hungary Kft. therefore launched the WATCH (Women at Tech) program last year, the aim of which is to make technical fields more attractive among 10th-grade high school girls who want to continue their studies. The University of Debrecen’sFaculty of Science and Technology and the Faculty of Informatics also joined the initiative.
The applicants took part in factory visits and were given interesting engineering tasks drawn from real life, and experts helped them solve them. Fifty people completed the training. Seeing the success, the WATCH program was launched again in January this year.
The WATCH+ program was also launched this year, in which 35 of the participants from last year’s first year participate. On Tuesday, five of them visited the Faculty of Science and Technology, where they could hear brief summaries of the training and research conducted at the faculty, then get to know the laboratories and the equipment used there, and receive brief summaries from the heads of the programs offered by the institution.
Social robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles, industrial robotics, automation, circular water management, noise protection, antenna design, the world of electromagnetic waves, diagnostic testing methods used in engineering practice, VR applications in industry and About 3D printing, technical signal processing, mechanical measurements, and modeling.
The scientific deputy dean of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Debrecen emphasized in connection with the visit: they try to do everything to help those who are about to choose a career to find their way around, they use every opportunity to present the characteristics and beauties of the engineering career to young people. In the past three years, the number of women admitted to full-time Hungarian-language BSc courses has been steadily increasing, reaching 74 in 2020, 83 in 2021, and 86 last year.
Girls often do not choose an engineering career due to the lack of adequate information, and it also happens that their environment gives them a false picture of it. However, girls are just as suitable for technical careers as boys. Within the many engineering fields and jobs, everyone can find what they like and are good at
– explained Imre Kocsis.
Just like last year, the girls will present their smart devices made in the WATCH program at an event in June, and later they will be available for viewing at the Campus Festival and the Researchers’ Night. In the previous school year, the students made, among other things, a smart mirror, an interactive lotus flower, a laser harp and an automatic animal feeder.
This year, it is expected that a plasma plate, a laser spirograph, a mini-robot and a weather station will come out of the WATCH workshop.
unideb.hu
