Tegan’s Engineering Scholarship Ambition
Tegan Shone knows exactly what she wants do. The Year 11 pupil at the Royal Alexandra and Albert School is aiming high and has her eye set on becoming a successful engineer.
Teachers nominated her for the prestigious Arkwright Engineering Scholarship, which supports high-achieving 16 year olds through their A Levels. It aims to nurture the future leaders of the Engineering profession, something Tegan hopes to be in the future.
Ms Kate O’Flynn, Head of Design and Technology at the School explained, “The Arkwright scholarships are respected in the industry. The scholarship’s link to businesses and universities is great and, as the scholarships have commercial sponsors, these organisations provide mentoring to the winners.”
Six of the School’s top Design and Technology students were first selected for nomination. They then had the opportunity to meet with an Arkwright Schools Liaison Officer to discuss the scholarship process in detail.
For the other pupils the scholarship’s focus on engineering was not what they wanted, but for Tegan it was perfect. And her interest in the field was immediately noticed.
Of all of the pupils who met with the Liaison Officer, Tegan stood out. She was identified as having strong leadership skills, her sketching and spatial reasoning was excellent, and her ability to engineer and work through problems independently was outstanding. All of these skills were further supported by her involvement in engineering projects outside of the classroom.
After being nominated, Tegan had to sit a two hour aptitude test. “I’m still waiting for the results of the test,” she said. “It was hard and the questions needed a lot of thinking through. I tried to prepare for it; Ms O’Flynn gave me some past papers and I’ve been practising my drawing and doing research on engineering systems.”
The results of the aptitude test will determine whether Tegan will progress to the interview stage. But even getting this far has already had an impact. She explained, “It’s focused my mind on what I want to do. I’ve been thinking about engineering as a career for the last year or so but now I know. The scholarship process has organised me into action; I’ve been researching colleges that specialise in engineering and have applied to the JCB Academy. In the future, I want to be an aeronautical engineer in the Ministry of Defence.”
Headmaster Mark Dixon was delighted with Tegan’s nomination, “Tegan is a very bright pupil and with her confidence, dedication and ability to lead, she will go a long way in engineering. This School aims to support pupils by helping them to fulfil their dreams and long-term career ambitions, whatever these may be. We wish her the best of luck with the application process.”
07 February 2017
