When Romy Lynch was in school she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She was a straight A student and was considering medicine, law or languages, but didn’t want to be tied to one career.

In 4th year she attended a course at the ESB for women in engineering. Gender stereotyping meant she hadn’t considered engineering as a career. She heard about the opportunities open to engineers and realised engineering was an extremely viable career option for her. She visited Ringsend Power Station and EirGrid to see engineering in action.

At a talk in UCD in 6th year she learned about how students are taught to think. UCD offered an engineering degree that was practical, with a good mix of labs. The college’s Horizons programme meant Romy could keep her languages up, which was important to her, and she did French in 1st year and Spanish in 2nd year. Her 3rd year in university will be in France on Erasmus.

Erasmus and non-EU international exchanges are open to almost all students, aside from the health sciences. But academic achievement in 1st year is important; to be accepted onto an exchange, students must have a GPA of 3 at the end of 1st year. Based on her Leaving Cert Romy was a UCD Ad Astra scholar, which was a great support – and a motivator to continue being an Ad Astra after 1st year.