WOMEN ENGINEERS

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20911, 16 September 1939, Page 20 (Supplement)

WOMEN ENGINEERS

OPPORTUNITIES IN GOVERNMENT Although in every nursery there are as many girls who want to play trains and to build miniature machines as there are boys, until quite recently the girl who in adult life wanted to be an engineer was looked on as a freak. The crisis and the Government’s schemes for rearmament have given engineering for women the best fillip possible. Miss Caroline Haslett, secretary of the Women’s Engineering Society, told me that prospects for the woman engineer were never brighter than today, says a writer in an English paper. Opportunities now arise for the first time in Government service for women in research and as ground engineers with the R.A.F. The snag is that they receive only two-thirds of the wages given to men doin-% similar work. There are jobs for women in electrical engineering, medical engineering—i.e., medical electricity and surgical appliances, factory inspection, chemical engineering, patent office work. works management and draught sm an ship. Training Available Two forms of training are available to girls who want to take up an engineering career. Either they take an engineering degree (three-year course) at a university in England, Scotland or Ireland, with an extra year as apprentice in an engineering firm for practical experience, or they start work on the commercial sirle of an engineering firm and train at evening classes in engineering. Shorthand and typing are necessary for such apprentice work and it leads to good posts on the commercial side. Where a girl can spare five years to take her degree, it is possible to train at a local Polytechnic in the evening or by correspondence classes and to carry on with other work at the same time. Scholarships ror both men and women are available at most universities and technical colleges. Some of them are worth as much as £250. Three years’ degree training will cost between £IOO and £2OO and life at a university hostel about £BO a year. Do not specialise too much is the best advice to the girl still at school and contemplating engineering. Modern languages are useful; industrial economics, chemistry, physics, geometrical drawing, and, of course good mathematics are >part of ,ithe equipment. Sidenotes to this profession include the simplified evening engineering course arranged in London for women who want simple engineering knowledge in their factory, welfare work, laundry or cookery careers. Gourses of instruction for women to act as forewomen and supervisors of muni- ' lion factories in time of war are be- j ing planned for various industrial j rentre*.