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“More women should opt for a career in engineering” says 22 year old Elizabeth Fall
23 June 2015In celebration of National Women in Engineering Day (#NWED) Elizabeth, who works as a product design engineer for innovative engineers GX, hopes to inspire other girls to choose a career in engineering by talking about her career path and what inspires her.
Her pathway to engineering started at a young age and grew from an interest in taking things apart. As an inquisitive child, Elizabeth remembers that she was more often found playing with her brother’s Lego than her toys, “I have always been interested in how things are both built and designed, I used to love building things with my brother’s Meccano. Later in school I naturally gravitated towards the more practical subjects and enjoyed the freedom and creativity of Design Technology so much that I opted to take it at GCSE and A-Level. This inspired me to explore a design focused degree, finally choosing to study Creative Product Design at the University of the West of England.”
Upon graduation Elizabeth found her current role at GX was the perfect fit for her, offering a natural outlet for her creative flair and inquisitive nature. Their design director, Gary Ross was keen to include a female design engineer to the hitherto all male team since women can bring to a different perspective to a project. “We work across a number of sectors including developing parts for the automotive industry, this is one area women have a key role to play since many cars are often designed by men, yet are driven by women; appealing to the female driver is an essential part of what we wanted to develop here at GX. Elizabeth is more creative in her approach to design and more style conscious; she has brought a unique point of view to many projects that she has been working on.”
Whilst this might be her first job as a product designer Elizabeth believes that she has made the right career choice. “Since joining the design engineering team at GX over a year ago no one day has been the same - every day brings a fresh challenge! There are so many parts to the job that I love; when developing a product I might initially complete a 3D render or a drawing on CAD which allow me to build a prototype from wood in the workshop. If more girls realised that a career in engineering offered both freedom and versatility along with a chance to style products of the future I’m sure they’d choose it! This is definitely the right career for me; I want to continue designing for as long as I can!”