Teens are given the opportunity to gain STEM work experience in leading companies.
We’ve developed our programming to begin with a work placement in the summer after Junior Cert, during which participants are exposed to projects, introduced to role models and begin to blog about their experiences.
While on the placements, Teen-Turn participants are engaged in a wide variety of projects including solutions engineering, data analytics, business intelligence, product applications, app and software development, 3D printing, scientific research, service desk and local IT functions, testing, networks and digital content and marketing.
Additionally, participants benefit from exposure to project management, agile methodology and scrum processes as well as workshops on CV writing, career guidance, third level access routes and university tours.
By blogging about their time with their mentors and companies, Teen-Turn participants are able to share their day-to-day challenges, discoveries, and successes. As part of this element, Science Foundation Ireland’s Smart Futures generously provides prizes to award the best blogs.
Teen-Turn works directly with the schools to identify participants for whom the experience would be most beneficial. As a result our participants include those who would not usually put themselves forward for these types of activities or see themselves as high performing students.
Of course, we welcome those achievers looking for new challenges. But we try to reach out to as many girls as we can to be as diverse and inclusive as possible.