We, Stemettes, love great school trips. We get to run about 40 a year and especially enjoy the ones when we get to take pupils out of the school environment, into real-world STEM ones. We did our very first school trip to fashion e-commerce giant ASOS on 5th March 2018 and had pupils from 3 London schools at their Camden HQ.
The day kicked off with a tour of everything ASOS – from the stock room to the photo studios to their tech teams and their canteen. We then got to know lots of their #womenintech – who worked in all kinds of roles – some were developers, others product managers and a few designers too.
Today we are at @ASOS HQ ? look how many future #GirlsInTech we have here – let’s start building some apps ?#ASOSStemettes #GirlsInSTEM #iwd2018 #PressforProgress pic.twitter.com/z8ddKNVdgp
— Stemettes ® ?★ # + (@Stemettes) March 7, 2018
They had set pupils a sustainability challenge for the day – something that is very important to ASOS, but also to us as budding engineers. How could we help ASOS customers recycle better or be more sustainable in their approach to their clothes? We got into teams of 4 or 5 across the schools and got working with assigned ASOS volunteers.
The room was a hive of activity – some were working on app prototypes, some were coding in HTML to create basic websites for their sustainability service – everyone was deep in excited contemplation and working towards the pitch time. We paused for an epic lunch then continued working – to the very last minute!
Judges from the ASOS Technology Leadership team joined us late afternoon to oversee the pitches, ask tough questions, demo prototypes and pick a winning team. We also did a ‘public vote’ for teachers and pupils to decide their winner.
The day ended with a short Q&A between the pupils and our fantastic ASOS volunteers. So much wisdom, advice and guidance was given and received. Everyone left motivated, inspired and ready to work at ASOS!
Well done to our judges winners and people choice winners ? such great websites and apps from everyone here today #GirlsInTech #GirlsInSTEM #ASOSStemettes #IWD2018 #internationalwomensday #PressforProgress pic.twitter.com/Lqr1dDV10T
— Stemettes ® ?★ # + (@Stemettes) March 7, 2018
Impactwise – the girls gave the event a 4.13 out of 5. 100% would love to come back, 97% would love to do more coding. 97% had improved perceptions of STEM, awareness of STEM roles, network within STEM and STEM knowledge. 90% had increased STEM confidence.
Here’s our Flickr gallery from the day
Thanks so much to ASOS for hosting 40 pupils, and providing us with food and inspiration. We can’t wait until we’re back again with more budding #girlsinSTEM.
