I'm a student in my first year of studying electrical and electronic engineering at Newcastle university. From my experience there's definitely been a bias towards the idea of going to university and getting a degree over something like an apprenticeship scheme as a path to getting into a career. I think this is massively disappointing as there's plenty of students who I've known who maybe aren't so confident in their academic ability or aren't as interested in the academic side of a degree, and due to this bias they have been completely put off the idea of following a more vocational path such as an apprenticeship to get them into a career in engineering. As well as this i totally agree with the idea of targeting teaching in terms of selling engineering and IET to students especially teaching younger students, as for me the first time i heard of the IET was once i got to University and to be honest as someone from the countryside I'd never even heard of engineers and didn't know about their role in society until i was in my final years of secondary school.
I recon the idea of workshops would be great when trying to get younger students involved in the world of engineering, also these workshops could act as a way of promoting apprenticeships to students so that they don't all feel like they have to go through university. I also believe that getting students motivated to do engineering will mean that they will want to aim for higher qualifications and titles i.e Ceng which is where most of the current marketing is aimed at. I hope this post has helped people understand a students view on this problem and that my ideas are useful.
