In the Liberian school system where students are required to study many subjects at the high school level before entering a university, it is sometimes difficult for the students to choose careers that will appeal to them.
The difficulties, as studies have shown, arise from peer pressure, the desire to earn more money and the fact that some do not just know what career they want to delve into. Some, because of what they see friends studying, will follow them, though the career does not appeal to them. Others will also choose to go into a career because it attracts financial income more than others.
On the other hand, many people, especially females, shun careers that are science or mathematics-related because of their complexities, thereby leading them to choose art courses that require more reading than solving complex math problems.
Today, the dynamics are gradually changing and one of the groups leading the change and helping young students, especially girls, to find their right career pathway is the Liberia Society of Women Engineers (LSWE).
This group of women, some of them who are already professionals or studying mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, construction, mining, and civil engineering, amongst others, at a number of universities and colleges, are in the vanguard of reaching out to the student community, encouraging up-coming high school students not to forsake careers associated with science and mathematics, but choose what appeals to them despite its subject nature.
Being so much concerned about the engineering career, the group encourages aspiring females to brave the storm to study engineering as men do, noting that there is no career too unique to a man that a woman cannot do.
Dorothy Gocol, President of the Liberia Society of Women Engineers, in her words of appreciation to their hosts (ArcelorMittal School Superintendent, ArcelorMittal Liberia Training Academy Management, and the Community Relations Department), expressed that their interactions with the students drove some females to consider enrolling in the AML Training Academy to study engineering-related careers. There at the academy, vocational trainees study and practice electricity/electronics, diesel mechanics, machining and fitting, and boiler making.
Dorothy said they are interested in conducting a career fair every year with students, especially females, to enable them to get knowledge of how to choose careers that will make them productive citizens in society and through which they can earn a good living.
She, on behalf of the group, commended AML’s stakeholders who assisted them in meeting their goals every year by hosting them to interact with students at the ArcelorMittal Liberia School System.
Dawie Loots, Manager of the ArcelorMittal Liberia Training Academy, expressed gratitude to the women engineers for reaching out to students of the AML School System with the career fair.
He said it was a good initiative not only for AMLTA or AML Schools but for the entire country because it helps women to break the glass ceiling.
Loots said AMLTA will continue to encourage more women to attend the academy, noting that as they are receiving applications from desirous students, he hopes more females will apply, sit the aptitude test and pass to have the opportunity to be enrolled.
Vaanii Kiazolu, Manager of Community Relations, admonished students that no one career is so difficult that a person, whether male or female, cannot do it. According to Kiazolu, one’s success in anything depends on the seriousness the person attaches to what he or she wants to do.
He told the up-coming students benefiting from the career fair to see it as an opportunity to guide them in making good choices. He said some careers, though they have significance, are however not very appealing anymore because the job-related demand is gradually declining. He urged the students to be curious about careers that will attract them to fast and payable jobs rather than ones that they will find difficult to give them jobs.