We were delighted to announce that two of our Year 12 students Charlotte Pons and Abha Bhole, have been awarded an Arkwright Engineering Scholarship!

Established over 30 years ago, the Arkwright Engineering Scholarship is one of the most well regarded scholarships of its type in the UK, designed to inspire students to pursue their dreams and change the world as a future leader in engineering.

Each Scholarship is sponsored by a professional company or organisation with links to Engineering to mentor ang guide students. They will offer support including experience, support for a curriculum projects and they will be assigned a personal mentor who can help with aspects of studies and career planning.

To apply for a Scholarship, students must have a strong desire to follow a career in Engineering. Students awarded a Scholarship receive £600 as part of the Scholarship – funding to support the purchase of components and materials to complete personal technical projects or enhance curriculum projects.

The students’ schools receive £400 to spend on equipment, materials or teacher training to enhance the delivery of STEM subjects. Scholars will also have access to a wide variety of exclusive events run by partner companies, universities and trade associations, including Connect Days and Summer Schools to give Scholars a real insight into different sectors of industry and academia.

Here’s what our Scholars had to say about their awards:

“For our application, we had to write about why we are interested in engineering, what aspects we enjoy and why we wanted to apply for an Arkwright scholarship in particular. We also had to submit a small project that showed our engineering and problem solving capabilities and explain the engineering skills we learnt throughout it. After our applications were sent and assessed, we were invited to be interviewed by industry professionals. During these interviews we had to present a 5 minute presentation and were asked multiple questions about our general interests in engineering and more specifically about the branch of engineering we had expressed an interest in.”

Both students are keen to pursue careers related to engineering, as Abha said, “I am thinking of studying aerospace engineering and working in the aerospace industry, mainly because I think it is the perfect way to bring together my fascination with both technology and space.” Charlotte added “I would love to study environmental engineering as I think increasingly in the future we are going to have to think not only about the benefits that engineering projects can bring to us, but also take into consideration the negative impacts that they may have on the environment and wildlife around us and think of new and innovative ways to convert these harms into benefits.”

Huge congratulations to Abha and Charlotte – we look forward to following your future careers in engineering!