St Anne’s College, Kialla student Lillian Richardson has been accepted into the University of Melbourne’s Girl Power in Engineering and IT program.
The program invites girls in Year 9 to take part in a three-night camp in Melbourne during the mid-year school holidays.
Lillian will be involved in the program for four years, with each year providing the participants with a new way to engage in the engineering world.
Lillian’s love for all things STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) originated in her early childhood.
“In primary school, I loved maths, it was my favourite subject,” Lillian said.
“As I moved into high school, that branched off into science too, mostly physics and chemistry.”
Her love for physics and chemistry inspired her dream of becoming an astrophysicist and the girl power program will move her one step closer.
“I applied because I want to further my knowledge in engineering because, as I said before, I want to be an astrophysicist,” Lillian said.
“This [program] is just another step up for me to get to that.”
Getting into the program was a lengthy process, but now Lillian is one of the 40 girls accepted, out of about 500 that applied.
“I knew about the program through a newsletter that my school puts out, which is a careers newsletter and I was actually looking through that while on holidays,’’ Lillian said.
“I was in Taiwan at the time and I was busy filling out the application on my phone trying to get it through.
“The application was mainly the basic stuff but they asked us about any experience we have in engineering with it and similar.”
After the applications were assessed, Lillian was one of the 60 applicants through to the interview stage.
After the interviews and meeting some of the other girls, Lillian found out she had been accepted.
And the school has been supportive of her adventure.
“They [the school] have been great in the last couple months,” Lillian said.
“I’m going to write a piece to the newsletter about it and my principal even wrote me a recommendation letter for it, so I really appreciate them.”
The prospect of going on a three-night trip to Melbourne has churned up a mix of emotions for Lillian.
“I am nervous because I’ve never been to Melbourne by myself, without my friends or parents or anything,” she said.
“However, I also think it’s really cool to be able to go to a university and to stay there for a couple of nights.
“I’m also really excited for the friends and lifelong relationships that I’ll make while there.”