BME students once again apply successfully for ABB’s female talent programme

Three out of the 8 winners study at BME. Each of them will be supported by mentors, selected based on the interests and expertise of the participants, with whom they will have consultation sessions  throughout the project.

Three young female students from BME were selected to participate in the programme, announced for the 7th time last year: Klaudia Kello, BSc student in electrical engineering and Kinga Háber, BSc student in computer engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics (VIK) and Luca Migléczi, BSc student in mechanical engineering from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (GPK).

The mentor programme is designed to encourage women to choose a career in engineering and to promote the acceptance of women in the field of engineering as well as to help female students to become familiar with the products, services, operations and processes of an international company through hands-on experience.

As part of the initiative called ‘ABB Mentor Programme for Female Students’, up to 10 female university and college students are selected every year, primarily from the areas of energetics, automation and mechatronics. The winners can gain an insight into the daily life of a multinational company, attend on-site factory tours and/or a thematic Robotics day, meet female leaders of the company and become familiar with various career paths in engineering. The participants have in-person or online sessions with the HR staff of ABB to ask questions about the labour market and the students can also become trainees of the company. The young women can engage in in-person or online consultations with ABB’s mentors up to 5 times during the six months while the programme also allows them to improve their competences and skills closely related to engineering by exploring the fields of project management, leadership or presentation through hands-on experiences.

Participation was offered to second and third-year students in a bachelor programme and fourth and fifth-year students in a master programme with an active student status in Hungary in a full-time, part-time or correspondent course with one of the nine Hungarian higher education institutions listed in the call for applications. The application criteria also included an intermediate level of English language proficiency. The applicants were assessed based on their aptitude and the level of their professional commitment: the documents required were CVs in Hungarian and English and a bilingual motivational letter describing why they thought the programme was relevant to them, what benefits they thought it had to offer and what long term plans they have in engineering. Applicants who had successfully participated in academic competitions and those with previous involvement in professional activities in higher education were preferred in the evaluation. The final decision was made following the online introduction of the applicants in front of the jury.

BME is also committed to making engineering and scientific careers attractive to and popular among young women. For this reason, it has organised the programme called Girls’ Day nine times in recent years, in which several of the university’s faculties took part. Despite the health emergency restrictions imposed due to the pandemic, this event was successfully organised online last year.

 

TZS-GI

Source of thumbnail: ABB