Adelaide Work Experience

In the first week of July, our first group work experience program for school students was successfully held in GPA’s Adelaide Office!

During this week we were host to five high school students, who spent their time participating in interactive sessions with each engineering discipline, drafting and project management. The sessions were prepared by staff from each discipline to provide students with a background and understanding of our work, pathways into the career, and what a day in the life looks like for a GPA employee working in the engineering industry.

Within each session students also participated in discipline related activities to get them problem solving and thinking like an engineer. These were very well received by the students, and involved a combination of slightly more figurative tasks, like the egg drop challenge, bridge building, and cookie processing, and some more representative of our actual work, like 3D modelling, and developing a project WBS and schedule.

The aim of the program was to provide opportunities to underrepresented groups in engineering. This was achieved by partnering with a local all-girls school. Hopefully, this experience helped them develop an enthusiasm for engineering and STEM fields and will result in them pursuing a career in this industry. For this first group, we had three girls from our partnered school, and two boys from other schools. Although the program is aimed at underrepresented groups, the program only prioritised them and did not exclude others that were interested.

We are excited to run this program again in Adelaide next year, hopefully with even more success, utilising learnings from this years’ experience to maximise students learning and enjoyment during their time with us. Additionally, we are looking forward to introducing the program in GPA’s other offices with the help of interstate champions.