{"id":11627,"date":"2016-02-03T06:24:28","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T14:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=11627"},"modified":"2016-02-16T17:13:33","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T01:13:33","slug":"new-camosun-club-helps-women-in-engineering-gain-confidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/02\/03\/new-camosun-club-helps-women-in-engineering-gain-confidence\/","title":{"rendered":"New Camosun club helps women in engineering gain confidence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Camosun College has a new student club for women in engineering.<\/p>\n

Second-year Civil Engineering Technology student Valerie Shearsmith says she started the Interurban Women in Engineering club (which Shearsmith says aims to instill \u201cconfidence and assertiveness” to women) after personal experiences of feeling intimidated in the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, in my experience, I\u2019ve been the only female in the engineering firm, and that\u2019s a hard position to be in, especially if you\u2019re timid,\u201d says Shearsmith, who worked in the industry for nine years as a drafter. \u201cSo I\u2019d like to prepare these girls so they\u2019re able to stand out when they get into the work force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shearsmith says the club meetings consist of lectures from motivational speakers who have worked at engineering firms and have first-hand experience with being outnumbered.<\/p>\n

\"Valerie<\/a>
Valerie Shearsmith of the Interurban Women in Engineering student club (photo by Camosun College A\/V Services).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve met a lot of great women who are capable of a whole lot of things, and they have encouraged me,\u201d says Shearsmith. \u201cNow I don\u2019t have to be scared of being in a management position. I mean, those ladies took it on and they do really great work, and they\u2019re respected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shearsmith says the most rewarding part of the club is watching her fellow classmates gain confidence. There is even someone in the group who specializes in executive coaching and leadership decisions, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I see a girl in the classroom setting who is one of those ones who has a hard time stating their own opinion when another member is quite sure in their opinion, I just say, \u2018You know what? Go for it. Because your thoughts matter.\u2019 So when I see these girls and how thankful they are that they have a club like this, it\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Shearsmith first started out as an engineer in a small town, she began going on site as an inspector with construction foremen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was telling them, \u2018Okay, you need to add nails here, you need to put in a pad here.\u2019 So imagine a girl of 20 telling a 60-year-old foreman pretty much what to do.”<\/p>\n

Since then, others have followed in her path.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what I hear,\u201d says Shearsmith, \u201cthis year was a record for women being enrolled in Civil Engineering Technology. Right now, we have about eight women to 30 guys in the program. We really need a lot of confident ladies in the industry, because we\u2019re a minority right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zoe Broom, chair of Civil Engineering Technology at Camosun, says that she\u2019s not sure if it\u2019s a record year but says that enrolment exceeds past averages.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe five-year average enrolment of women in the Civil Tech program is 13 percent,\u201d says Brown. \u201cWe currently have 17 percent women in Year 1 and 22 percent women in Year 2.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shearsmith would like to see women get more opportunities to be in management positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people that I\u2019ve met as I\u2019ve progressed in the industry have given me confidence that there\u2019s a lot of potential out there,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Ayla DeFoor, also a second-year Civil Engineering Technology student, says she has noticed an increased sense of camaraderie with her classmates since Shearsmith founded the club. She says that for her it\u2019s less about gender equality and more about treating all humans with a fundamental level of compassion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to necessarily see \u2018gender equality,\u2019\u201d says DeFoor. \u201cI\u2019d rather see human equality. I really hate to admit that I\u2019ve experienced a little bit of sexism in the industry; it\u2019s sort of hard to believe that, but it is there. I\u2019m really looking forward to working in a place where my gender is not an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeFoor says the next place she works will be determined by the feeling of equality that she perceives in the office. She thinks the club is helping its members prepare for being involved in the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cVal is doing such a great job preparing us,\u201d says DeFoor. \u201cI think it\u2019s a really great service she\u2019s doing us.\u201d<\/p>\n

All Interurban Women in Engineering meetings consist of guest lectures and take place at Interurban on Fridays in the Technologies Building.<\/p>\n

Find the club on Facebook (search for CI Women in Engineering) or email vsdesignanddraft@hotmail.com to stay updated.<\/p>\n

Correction: a previous version of this story identified Zoe Broom as Zoe Brown. We apologize for the mistake.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Camosun College has a new student club for women in engineering. Second-year Civil Engineering Technology student Valerie Shearsmith says she started the Interurban Women in Engineering club (which Shearsmith says aims to instill \u201cconfidence and assertiveness” to women) after personal experiences of feeling intimidated in the industry. \u201cSometimes, in my experience, I\u2019ve been the only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-february-3-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11627"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11715,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11627\/revisions\/11715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}