On Thursday 28 October, Megan in Year 12, was presented with her prestigious Arkwright Award at a virtual ceremony. Various speakers attended this event including the CEO of The Smallpiece Trust who administer the awards, previous successful scholars and Arkwright mentors. Megan’s award was presented along with comments about her achievements to date, including being chased off a beach by a large black bear!

There have only been 6000 awards in the 30 years of the Arkwright Scholarship and so this is a huge success following a very rigorous selection process. Huge congratulations to Megan on her achievement, and we look forward to seeing her progress over the next two years of her Sixth Form scholarship.

We interviewed Megan about her scholarship;

• What is an Arkwright scholarship?

The Arkwright scholarship is a two year engineering mentoring and training program that is industry sponsored. It allows you an opportunity to prove yourself and your engineering skills. The scholarship provides the scholar and the school bursary for each of the two years you have the scholarship for. They will also be provided a mentor to help you learn more about the engineering world in the areas you are interested in. There will also be access to more connect days and residential provided by companies and universities. Overall it is a great opportunity to learn more about engineering even just during the application process and it is a great thing to go on to your CV. Even if you are not awarded the scholarship in the end writing up the application and the interview are both extremely useful skills to learn.

• What prompted you to get the scholarship?

I’ve always been interested in engineering and my dad who works as an Engineer heard about the scholarship and suggested it. I read up more about it on the website and decided it sounded really interesting.

• How did you apply for it?

I filled out an application talking about my experience in engineering and where I want it to take me in the future. There was also a project required, this could be something I did in school or a personal engineering project. The application requires a description of your project within it. You will then go through a 2 hour aptitude exam asking you to figure out different engineering problems. If you get through the first 2 stages you go through a short interview where you talk about your project and your interests. If you pass the interview they will take a few months to find you a sponsor and if they do they will contact you to tell you you have got the scholarship. There are typically around 300 scholarships given per year.

• What does it mean now?

I have just filled in a profile for MentorNet and am looking for a mentor to help support me with my learning during my scholarship. I will receive £600 to pay for material costs and uni connect days. The school will also receive £400 to buy more equipment for learning. I will also be able to attend more exclusive uni connect days. It is also a very useful skill to to put in the personal statement and CV.