At the invitation of Ambra Calver at Thomas Mills High School, a small selection of robots and I went off there last week to support their Y9 and Y10 STEM Fair. It was good to meet some very interesting people, staff as well as students, and I hope that I managed to convince a few people of the importance of continuing studying STEM subjects. Sadly in the UK, there still seems to be a conception that STEM subjects are ‘hard’ and not good subjects for girls to study. Of course, this is not the case. I studied physics at at university back in the 1980s, and studied for my Ph.D in a research group that included several ladies. One of those ladies became a lecturer, then a professor, rose to become head of the Physics department and was awarded a CBE several years ago.
STEM subjects aren’t hard, they’re different. They make you think, and look at things logically. And, by studying them you can do absolutely anything. Being a scientist doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy making music or studying a foreign language.