School children get a taste for technology at Vera Day

On 28 October students from middle and high schools attended Vera Day at the School of Engineering (JTH), Jönköping University (JU), to learn more about technology and to get an idea of what it's like to work as an engineer.

“I could definitely study at JTH,” says Kajsa Sjöstrand, who is studying on the technology program at Finnveden's high school in Värnamo.

Vera Day is held annually at JTH in order to inspire mainly girls and young women to choose technical educations and professions. High school and middle school students were shown around JTH and got, among other things, to meet the Jönköping University Solar Team.

70 middle school students

Middle school students participated in Vera Day this year for the very first time. Approximately 70 students from year five at Torpa School in Jönköping seemed to have a good time on Vera Day. They discovered that an engineer both solves problems and develops new things.

The students took part in a classroom lesson where they were taught that the metal Nitinol has a shape memory and that a bent Nitinol gem regains its original shape when placed in hot water. At another learning station visiting school students were shown that iron is almost everywhere around them, even in the food we eat. A taste test revealed that they preferred chocolate with a lower iron content. The visitors also built Lego both with and without instructions to gain an understanding of design, construction and production and see how the different groups solved their tasks.

"It was like a dream"

Torpa school year five students Tove Lydeen and Robyn Manole said it was inspiring and mindblowing to see and do real technical experiments at JTH.

“It has been a great day. It was like a dream to be here and it's good that there are days like this when you can come here and try new things,” says Tove Lydeen..

Both Tove and Robyn said that they were already looking forward to starting university and that they might choose JTH.

"We need to tell young women how fun our jobs are"

Young women who have studied at JTH and today work as engineers gave talks to both high school students and current JU students. One of them was Julia Kaidalova, who in her job as Domain Architect at Husqvarna visualizes and manages system landscapes.

“The number of women in the engineering industry is still quite low. We who work in the tech industry need to tell young women how fun our jobs are, and Vera Day is a perfect opportunity to do that,” says Julia Kaidalova.

Kajsa Sjöstrand, who is studying in the third year of the technology program at Finnveden's secondary school in Värnamo found Vera Day very inspiring and studying at a technical university might be something she wants to do in the future.

"A good impression of JTH"

"I got a good impression of JTH. It seems like a good school with a lot of programs, and I hear they have a fun kick off. In addition, Jönköping is a reasonably large city and it is close to home in Värnamo,” says Kajsa Sjöstrand.

Anna Henebäck, Tech Recruiter at Semcon in Jönköping, attended the latter part of the Vera Day where companies got the chance to mingle with JU students. She was there to find more female engineers.

“It is very difficult because there are not that many women in the technology industry and there are many of us who want to hire them, so they are really sought after. More female engineers are needed so that we can develop products and create a future that suits as many people as possible”, she says.