Q&A
WITH RECRUITING FUTURE TALENT A KEY FOCUS FOR CONSTRUCTION, NI BUILDER TALKS TO STUDENT SOPHIE BOYLE ABOUT HER COURSE, ASPIRATIONS AND EFFORTS TO FORGE STRONGER LINKS WITH INDUSTRY… Delivering future construction leaders
Social gatherings include pizza nights.
Supporting an open day with Construction Futures.
Tell us about your course and why you chose it I’ve just finished my final-year exams for a BSc (Hons) in Construction Engineering and Management. I studied technology, geography and maths at A-Level, and wanted to do something engineering based but with the management side as well. I loved my course and am sad to leave. I think it has the perfect balance of classwork and practical experience. We do a surveying camp and the third of our
four-year course is on placement in the construction industry. You can learn everything you need to in class, but on placement it’s like, oh, so that’s what that actually means and does. It just helps everything come together, so it was perfect coming into final year to have that hands-on experience behind what we’re talking about. How did you get involved with Ulster University’s Construction Society? Our course director brought it up and asked us if we would like to take it over for our final year. I wish we had been involved in first and second year because, even though our course is quite small, this final year is the most everyone on it has spoken to each other. We decided to use the Society to try and form more of a community within our course and it was hard to get people involved but, once we did, they were happy to be there. The Society has just over 100 members this year, and is sponsored by Farrans, Construction Futures and the Students’ Union. We have organised a pub quiz, pizza night and day at the races to bring everyone together, as well as networking events for employers to speak to students; particularly second years to make them more confident going into their placement. For freshers’ fest, we had lanyards and stickers made for our stand and organised
a pizza lunch between classes for students to meet each other. We have also attended open days with Construction Futures, Meet the CIOB events and were invited to CEF’s NI Construction Dinner. It has been a great experience.
Have you any suggestions for encouraging more women into construction?
I did my dissertation on this. Quite often at open days, girls don’t even come up to us. When I was at school, I was the only girl in my technology class. I don’t know if it’s because I went to a high-performing school, but trades, apprenticeships and construction were not discussed at career events. I think there should be a more targeted approach focusing on girls in school to say you can do this and it’s interesting and not just for boys. More help and support from industry professionals and companies would be great too. What’s next for you? I want to go into site management. The plan is to get chartered and see where I can go from there. www.ulster.ac.uk/courses/202627/ construction-engineering-and-manage- ment-41269 www.uusu.org/get_involved/societies/ join/constructionsociety/ Want to know more? NI BUILDER | 42
Sophie Boyle (right), Chair of UU’s Construction Society.
42 | NI BUILDER
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