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| It was open afternoon at my girls school last week and they were keen to show me all their hard work |
I think it is a very sad world to live in where any child has their dreams and horizons clipped and is expected to develop in a certain way and do certain things when they grow older. When my Mum was young (she is now in her late 60's) it was very much expected that once she married and had children she would give up her work and stay home to care for her family.
Perhaps because of this my Mum was determined that I should undertake any career I chose and as such I was the first in my family to go to University, where I studied Hotel Management. My parents have always been very proud of my career and supported my choice to keep working once I had my own children. I did change fields at that time and moved to work in a large entrepreneurial University near my home as a HR Manager. During my ten years at the University of Hertfordshire (UH) I undertook my Masters and worked in HR and training, supporting our staff to deliverer the best education to our students.
Working at UH was very inspiring and an eye-opening experience as the disciplines taught were vast and it was the first time I was seeing women in high level positions in the fields of engineering, medicine, technology and science. I can clearly recall the first time I went along to see Prof. Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn (professor of Artificial Intelligence) KASPAR showcase and felt so proud that a women was leading in a field that is traditionally dominated by men.
Thank goodness the UK seems to be moving in the right direction and thanks to forward-thinking schools, colleges, universities and employers we are seeing some positive trends for girls going into STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) careers. However it is still not enough, only 1 in 4 people working in core STEM roles are women and this means we are underrepresented (source).