Breda Ryder fits right into the stereotype of the high-achieving, highly motivated woman engineering student: she is at the top of her fourth-year class in industrial engineering and information systems in NUI Galway and has already received a job offer from Boston Scientific.
It is tempting to look at that CV and say that women are particularly suited to engineering. However, it may have more to do with self-selection: any girl who decides she wants to become an engineer is, necessarily, highly motivated.
For Ryder, engineering may have seemed a natural choice; her sister had already completed the same industrial-engineering course.
Unusually, she is the only girl in a class of 24 students, but she says "it's fine, no problem". Her advice to aspiring engineers is that they should have an aptitude for maths.
Everybody told her she needed physics, she says, but she was able to manage without it.
The hours were heavy in the early years of the course, Ryder says; still, she recommends it. She and fellow student Paul Sherlock did a final-year project with CR Baird (now called MedtronicAVE), working to improve the yield on a product line which produced balloons for angioplasty.
The four-year BE in industrial engineering and information systems offered by NUI Galway is one of a number of direct-entry engineering programmes. The college also offers a common-entry programme and students can specialise later. This approach suits incoming students who are unsure what each specialism entails.
Industrial engineering is defined in NUI Galway's literature as "that branch of engineering which provides an interface between the effective management of an industry and the technology employed".
Dr John Sheil, who lectures on the programme, explains that the industrial engineering and information systems course is broader than most engineering courses in that it incorporates management, computing, marketing, economic and financial subjects.
"People who have done a science, engineering or a technical programme often do an MBA to give them the business element. This programme includes that element," he adds. Lecturer Enda Fallon notes that, in addition to the business subjects, students do human sciences such as organisational development, ergonomics (all about the human in the workplace), industrial development and psychology, as well as courses in human biology.
Core engineering subjects include engineering design, management engineering, production engineering and computer applications.
Industrial engineering attracts a reasonable quota of women - about 30 per cent. This year, there are six women in a class of 21 first-year students. Typically, there are more women than in other engineering disciplines, Sheil notes.
The college has recently introduced a work-placement element, which will take 20 weeks in third year.
Accredited by the Institution of Engineers of Ireland and the British Institution of Electrical Engineers, the qualification is recognised in EU countries, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada.
The good news is that demand for graduates exceeds supply. Starting salaries are in the region of £15,000 to £19,000; more than 80 per cent of the 1996 graduate class are employed in Ireland.
Job titles are varied: graduates of the course may be employed as industrial engineers, of course, but also as manufacturing engineers, ergonomists, IT consultants, plant managers, safety and environmental engineers - or possibly as product and process engineers.
The sectors offering employment are equally varied, ranging from electronics to chemical/pharmaceutical to the automotive industry; from telecommunications to health care to logistics.
An increasing number of graduates set up their own businesses in areas such as information technology, software, manufacturing and management consultancy.
The cut-off points for 1998/99 were 380 and special subject requirements include a C3 in higher-level maths or a pass in the special engineering entrance exam.
