STEM Women organises several graduate careers events over the course of the year. Most recently, I attended their Hybrid UK STEM Careers Event at the Congress Centre on Great Russell Street near the LSE campus. I also attended one of their events in my first year of university, and it was such a good experience that I was delighted to hear that they were hosting their events in-person again. As someone who studies mathematics at LSE, an institution that specialises in the Social Sciences, this kind of event is great to get a taste of the variety of careers open to me which are a bit different from some of the careers advertised in LSE Careers fairs. That being said, this is not an “either/or” situation; LSE has wonderful career fairs which every student should attend at some point during their studies, but having another networking opportunity outside of LSE is definitely if something to take advantage of.
This year’s event was hybrid and flexible so that people could attend both online and in-person. Due to the venue’s close proximity to campus, I was able to attend in-person. It opened with an hour of speakers’ presentations; first, the Head of Events from STEM Women introduced the structure of the event and welcomed participants, and then the session was passed over to representatives from companies present at the event. We heard from GCHQ, an AI-powered cybersecurity firm DarkTrace, and Kubrick. Following this, we were let out into the main hall to browse the different stalls and network with people from each company. For those people attending online, they had virtual stalls where they could webchat and network remotely. However, the great benefit of attending in-person was that not only could you network with professionals, but you could also network with students from other universities and make new connections with people sharing similar passions or aspirations. This first networking session lasted about an hour during which time you could also eat your free lunch provided by the event.
The next hour was a second speaker’s panel and Q&A where KPMG, Virtusa, and ETeach presented on the opportunities available to graduates. It was great to receive advice from female employees about how they handle working in traditionally male-dominated industries. One of the best pieces of advice was borrowed from Princess Leia, aka Carrie Fischer.
Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.
This was to say that lots of women may feel daunted by the application process or feel they can’t fulfill a role successfully. But if you feel passionate about a role you should apply anyway and let your skills speak for themself. Your gender shouldn’t affect whether you go for an opportunity or not. It’s realising that there is this level of support and community of other women that I find is the best part of these events. In addition to STEM careers events, STEM Women has also planned a UK Financial Services Careers Event and a UK Technology Careers Event. Their full calendar of events can be found here. Their website also advertises job postings from various industries which you can apply to through their Career Portal. I’ve found it to be a great resource in addition to LSE’s own Careers Services, so I highly recommend other students to check it out and attend some of their events.
