The STEM Ambassador programme is a national programme encouraging young people to take up STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics with an increasing emphasis on the inclusion of Arts – STEAM) and continue onto STEM careers.
Ambassadors get involved in classroom activities, mentoring, STEM clubs and societies, careers talks and speed networking, large science festivals and fairs and community groups.
We have a group of staff and students at the University who are current ambassadors but it would be great if more of you would like to get involved. The commitment is to take part in activity within a month of joining the programme and then to undertake one activity a year. In practice this is easy to fulfil. An activity could be a talk at a schools or college or any of our outreach activities in the University involving younger people.
The next two hour induction session for Ambassadors is on Tuesday 12th December in R350, Science Centre from 2 to 4pm. To register email stemabassador@staffs.ac.uk
“While at university, both my course and my part-time job required me to present in front of large numbers of people. As I became more confident at this, I began to enjoy it even more and by the time I had finished my first year, I considered following teaching as a career. I found the STEM Ambassador scheme through a taster day at university, and I was able to sign up to the scheme on the day. An incredible benefit I found taking part through university was that my DBS was free of charge as a student. The scheme allows you to be as active as you can, and you only get the experiences if you put the work in. For this reason, I was able to get some truly valuable experiences whilst managing my studies. If you have every considered teaching, or just fancy stepping in a classroom to see what it’s like, I couldn’t recommend the STEM ambassador program more!” – Sam Pillow, Vice-President, Staffordshire University Student Union.