The Graduate Olympics Kicks Off!

In the time between saving the world through developing almost limitless clean energy, you might wonder what the graduates get up to. Here is little something to show off the great social side of the graduate scheme at UKAEA. Because alongside the world-leading fusion facilities here at Culham there is another, slightly less well known, patch of grass. One that was about to bear witness to what can only be called the next great rivalry in sport.

Jimmy had a plan. It came to him, as so many great ideas do, over a stiff drink. A series of sporting events, once a week pitching the best Oxford residents against those from Abingdon. Also Didcot, we never forget about Didcot.

And so the ‘Gradlympics’ was born. The tight-knit graduates, freshly knotted from self-awareness, were about to be cruelly bisected. 

Event No. 1: Football

After weeks of posturing, trash-talking and jibes – things were about to get real.

And what better event to start off the Gradlympics than the most popular sport on planet Earth, Football. A sport played with as much passion and prowess in the cold climbs of Iceland as in the tropical Amazon. For the graduates the passion was there in spades. The prowess, well, was a development opportunity.

The game started with some back and forth play, but few breakthroughs. It was looking a low scoring game until Korzeniowska, in the process of innocently ‘defending her ovaries’, inadvertently conceded a penalty. The spot kick was slotted away. 1-0 Abingdon.

Those who knew what they were doing barked words like ‘Tackle!’, ‘Through ball!’ and ‘Set the offside trap!’ which were duly ignored. One of the few fouls of the game left Abingdon with a free kick at an enticing range. Ascott lined up and served a delicious curling shot into the corner, with what he claims is his ‘wrong’ foot. 2-0. Abingdon had found its Cristiano. 

Chris Stuart makes a run through the midfield

Half time brought rest for Oxford, and also oranges. Oxford began the second half pressing hard, with Fulton, Moore and Stuart probing the defence. But they couldn’t have predicted the wall they would encounter.

Quirk was a fortress. Catch after catch, save after save. Was it experience, athleticism, or a simple love of being an annoyance that produced such results? We may never know.

But if Quirk was a fortress, the central pairing of Hawkes and Cooper can only be likened to a bank vault. Impenetrable, imposing and powerful.

Bookless channelled his inner Gary Neville to produce obstinate resistance to all the fancy footwork, getting in there and causing chaos. Litherland-Smith too, held strong. 

Amongst all the pressing Abingdon managed a breakaway to Todd, alone up front. But not alone for long, as Abingdon counterattacked with speed into the box. The nifty Robson was there like a flash at the back post. A striker’s instinct. 3-0.

The final insult came with a corner late in the game, when a bizarre own goal sealed the result. Morgan (the Welsh one) gave a bemused smile, and looked down at his body. Guilty as charged.

Oxford tried some late tricks: a burst of speed from President Measures, a sly elbow to the jaw, but to no avail. 4-0. A resounding win, a shock result to kick off the games. 

Oxford

Abingdon

Event No. 2: Ultimate Frisbee

Oxford were not about to take their defeat lying down. Captain Livesey was back, and in her element. It was time… for Frisbee. Oxford were confident of victory. Abingdon were confident that they did not know the rules.

So imagine the surprise when a quick combination left Robson in the endzone and Abingdon 1-0 up. Oxford it must be said, looked mildly ticked off. This wasn’t in the script. Oxford were soon back on level terms but before long Abingdon were back in a comfortable lead. 3-1. Then 4-2. 

Quirk, keen to show off his pace after a week in goal, scored three. Abingdon were fast, if inelegant. Oxford despaired as their carefully prepared stacks turned spotty.

But as Abingdon tired their fast, direct game started to get slower and more erratic. Oxford’s superior structure started to pay off. Turnovers were rare as Livesey and Stuart bossed the play. If they were in trouble, Witty was somehow always available. For the last twenty minutes a relentless Oxford side put together some beautiful connected play, and clawed back the deficit. 5-5. Into the last minute, tensions high.

Oxford, with their final attack, found Fulton through a gap in the defence. The comeback was complete. 6-5 Oxford. 

So, one win apiece; both well-deserved victories. It’s all square. Stay tuned.

P.S. A huge thanks to the graduate scheme team and friends for refereeing, without which this wouldn’t happen!

#BalanceForBetter International Women’s Day 2019

Today we have a guest post from Helena, reporting on the Women's Engineering Society Annual Conference and International Women's Day...

As a lot of people will know, March 8th is International Women’s Day. At UKAEA, we marked the day with a small celebration at lunch organised by our Inclusion Ambassadors that all staff were invited to. We started with a bit of networking; chatting to different people from across site and learning about what they do. Following this, we gathered to watch a TED talk by renowned feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called ‘We should all be feminists.’ The talk can be found here.

The graduates celebrate International Women's Day

I also attended the Women’s Engineering Society’s (WES) Annual Conference on 15th March. This year marks the 100th anniversary for WES and the theme for the conference was ‘Celebrating the Past, Transforming the Future.’ There were a variety of interesting talks throughout the day; Mandy Hickson started the day with a keynote speech on her experience as a fighter pilot in the RAF. She gave an engaging and frank recount of her time in an incredibly male dominated profession. This was followed by a talk from John Edmonds, one of the authors of ‘The Stalled Revolution: Is Equality for Women an Impossible Dream.’ He gave a fascinating talk on how women’s rights had developed over the past 100 or so years. He made parallels to how liberties had been won then and how we’re going about it now. 

Just before lunch, I took part in the poster session. I presented on the design of tools for pipe cutting and welding in ITER as I have just completed a project on the subject. I spoke to engineers from many different backgrounds and explained the work we were doing at UKAEA to make fusion a reality.

At lunch I was able to network with some of the attendees. There were engineers from all stages of their careers; I spoke to undergraduates and early career people as well as senior and retired engineers. It was great to get advice from the engineers at later career stages and to chat to those at a similar stage to me, sharing stories and getting inspired to achieve my goals. 

A panel session of women at different career stages kicked of the afternoon. The chat centred around their experiences and advice to others. A standout bit of advice for me came from Rachel Higham, Manging Director of IT at BT; she recommended everyone work on their ‘personal brand.’ Make sure you know where you want to be and that you are visible. If no one knows who you are, you won’t be considered for new opportunities.

The day was wrapped up with a series of workshops (I attended ‘breaking the mould’ which helped us figure out what we wanted from our careers) and a talk on the vision for the next 100 years of WES. There was a joke that ideally, we’d hope there’s no need for WES in another 100 years’ time but given that the proportion of female engineers has only increased by 10.5% in the last 100 years, it seems WES will be needed for a few more centuries. One of the messages of the day was that change won’t happen on its own. We need to drive the change and it is not just a problem for women. Better diversity in the work place improves men’s lives as well and if only women are trying to change culture, you’ve only got the backing of 50% of the population. Change will be much more successful with 100% of the population and then maybe we might be able to make WES redundant.

The graduates learn about ethics and self-awareness

Tables laid out in circles, chunky workbooks, and free pens. Before we’d even begun, the recent IET Ethics for Engineers workshop had all the hallmarks of a great day of professional development. In this workshop our presenter looked at adding to our previous knowledge in Ethics and Philosophy. This knowledge, it turns out, could likely be written on the back of a small napkin. Undeterred, he absorbed us with a day full of morally ambiguous, engineering-based questions and scenarios.

This was one of two recent professional development courses aimed at building the perspective of the graduate group. These courses form part of the 20% time allocated to all graduates at UKAEA for learning, development and outreach activities. 

The other was the return of our favourite mind-stretching psychologist, Vanessa. Back by popular demand, she presented a sequel to her self-awareness workshop from before Christmas. This was a chance to bring our minds clear of the workplace and embrace more deep, involved conversations. Engineers are stereotypically are not the strongest on the emotional intelligence front, to put it mildly. But this activity day showed a fantastic amount openness and care for others. 

Back in the Ethics workshop, one of the more interesting moments of the day arrived when we were set the task of defining “a profession”. “Is engineering a profession?” We were asked. I think a few may have looked quite affronted. Of course it’s a profession! How could it not be? It seemed simple. But as the debate progressed things only became murkier… and a little more heated. Don’t mention the Cybernetics! 

Our presenter acted as a moderator, letting as many voices as possible be heard before moving on to a more sedate discussion on Codes of Ethics. Side note- just 10 days later Codes of Ethics were in the news, with a government report recommending tech companies have a compulsory Code of Ethics forced upon them. One wonders what our opinions would have been on that point.

The ever-calm voice of Vanessa wanted to explore how our previous experiences have shaped us. As the day progressed she worked her craft, teasing clear the wrought-iron knots of emotional constraint. Another exercise had us ranking our personal values. All of this was to make clear that how we respond to situations of difficulty and conflict is built from our past.

The professional importance of these exercises was evident. This can help us understand ourselves better, as well as people of different backgrounds, personalities and values. Although, some did find all this dialogue quite "draining". 

The afternoon let us all let loose and get some frustrations off our chest. These covered everything from punctuality to work colleagues to plates. Even the graduate scheme managers got in on sharing their annoyances, happy to take part in the spirit of the day. 

A delayed lunch at the Ethics workshop left a few considering the ethical implications of cannibalism. All came to the agreement that George would most certainly make the best meal. Well, all except George. 

An excellent second half began with the ethical challenges of a drone company. We also played out an all too real scenario of trying to appoint capable women to management in countries with poor gender equality. It is a scenario you can be sure has played out many times, and spoiler, there are often no good solutions.

Perhaps the most worrying revelation came at the end of the day, when thirty odd young and bright engineering minds, after a full day of being taught about ethics, all completely disagreed on the definition of a bribe. Some way still to go, perhaps.