Future engineer shows great promise

Congratulations go to Michelle Kostin who has had a very impressive year and shown not only excellence in the academic realm, but also great determination and strength of character.

Getting through to the final stage of winning an Arkwright Engineering Scholarship, the most prestigious scholarship of its kind in the UK, has been just one highlight in a packed year for this promising engineer. The aim of the Arkwright award is to inspire and nurture pupils to become the country’s future leaders of the engineering profession. This is a remarkable achievement – the selection process is extremely rigorous with the bar set high; demanding exams are sat and interviews given before the successful candidate is awarded the scholarship – the announcement of which will be announced next month. We’re hoping for a positive outcome for Michelle!

Michelle’s success does not stop there – she’s now looking forward to an exciting summer. Having scored the highest mark in the Intermediate Maths Challenge, Michelle has been invited to attend a week long maths camp at Oxford University during the summer break. She has also been selected to attend a ‘women in engineering’ day at UCL later this month, and is currently on a six month mathematics course at Imperial College, having attended several masterclass courses in Engineering. Her performance has led to invitations to events and lectures at several universities, including King’s College.

Michelle’s achievements are not only within the realms of academia. After a challenging set of interviews and exams, Michelle was selected for a work experience place at British Airways in the Engineering Department. Every budding engineer’s dream, Michelle worked with the operational research team and was able to examine the planes and facilities with an experienced engineer to guide her. Her next work experience will take place this summer at Marks Barfield, the company which designed the London Eye.

Michelle says: “I would like to study Aeronautical engineering at Cambridge University and then perhaps a masters at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One day I hope to be a Design engineer at NASA – who knows, maybe I will be part of the Mars Mission Team!”

Author: Karen Dove