At the digital Girls' Day 2021, female students from the Faculty of Engineering showed that electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and energy technology are much more than just calculating with mathematical formulas or physical laws.
At the digital Girls'Day 2021 - Girls' Future Day on 22 April 2021, schoolgirls from all over Germany were given an insight into the various STEM degree programmes at HTWK Leipzig. Under the motto "Improve the world as an engineer!", female students from the Faculty of Engineering showed that electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and energy technology are much more than just calculating with mathematical formulas or physical laws.
Digital ideal?
This year, only a few schoolgirls had the chance to take part in Girls'Day 2021 at HTWK Leipzig. Since only digital events are possible due to the pandemic, Girls'Day 2021 also had to go online and limit the number of participants to a maximum of 40 per virtual event.
The Faculty of Engineering's offer "Improving the world as an engineer!" was fully booked early on. As a rule, the participants come from the local area and primarily exclusively from Saxony. However, there were no participants from Saxony at the digital Girls'Day 2021; instead, schoolgirls from more distant regions of Germany, such as North Rhine-Westphalia, registered for the Zoom meeting in good time and took the opportunity to take a look at engineering studies in Leipzig.
Improving the world as an engineer!
Stefanie Penzel from the Faculty of ING welcomed the pupils from Years 8, 10 and 11 via Zoom and gave them a virtual tour of the foyer in the Nieperbau, giving them an insight into lecture theatre N001 and the PC pool. Afterwards, she and Sophie Gedicke explained to the pupils what they can research during and after studying Energy, Building and Environmental Engineering at the faculty. Stefanie Penzel briefly presented her Master's thesis on the research area of odour sensors* and Sophie Gedicke explained how solar cells actually work.
For an exciting insight into studying mechanical engineering, Anne Bullmann took the students on a tour of the CATIA programme with a demonstration design. She showed that CATIA is not only a basic and useful tool in the mechanical engineering degree programme. The programme can also be used to produce creative, user-defined everyday objects.
The third STEM degree programme at the ING faculty was presented by Tessa Petermann. Together with Jan Dossin, she explained the practical and well-supervised first-semester project of the Electrical Engineering and Information Technology degree programme to the schoolgirls. In addition to a theoretical introduction to the professional field of electrical engineering and information technology, the first-semester students have to realise their own projects during their studies. This year they are making roasting thermometers. But that's not all. Michael Wallenta, who presented selected research and final theses, provided a brief insight into the exciting field of medical technology.
The next Girls'Day 2022 is expected to take place on 28 April 2022.
More information:
Girls'Day website
Girls'Day at HTWK Leipzig
Study programmes offered by the Faculty of Engineering
*Original title of the Master's thesis: "Fusion, evaluation and visualisation of data from complex sensor systems in on-site analytics"
