A COUPLE of months ago, Lewis Glen and Isaac Prior were two-thirds of a team that had the honour of providing the final step in a public engineering challenge on the Bathurst CSU campus.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Fast forward to May and the first-year students have each been named as recipients of $20,000 scholarships as part of a program that aims to support the next generation of cadet engineers.
Mr Prior said he has had a passion for building things since excelling at putting together Lego and Meccano sets as a child.
"I would like to leave my mark in the world by designing sustainable and efficient solutions to infrastructure-related problems within society," he said.
"With all the natural disasters we have seen over the past few years, I also see a need to develop more core infrastructure such as levees and roads that can withstand flood waters."
Mr Glen, who completed a pathways course into university after graduating high school without an ATAR and studying to be an electrician at TAFE, said the scholarship "will allow me to focus on my study and do the best I can".
"At this point in time, I'm not sure which type of engineering will best suit me, however, I will stay committed and continue to work my hardest to further benefit society as an engineer."
The $20,000 scholarships are awarded under a partnership between electricity network company Transgrid and CSU to help address infrastructure skills shortages in regional NSW.
"Transgrid is accelerating the renewable energy transition by building the nation-critical transmission infrastructure to deliver cheaper, cleaner and more reliable energy to millions of Australians," executive general manager of major projects Gordon Taylor said.
Mr Glen, 21, and Mr Prior, 24, are among 17 first-year engineering students to receive scholarships.
Other recipients hailed from Orange, Dubbo and Wagga Wagga, among other locations.
Transgrid says its $2 million Engineering Scholarship Fund will support 100 engineering students at the CSU Bathurst campus between 2023 and 2029 to help build a bigger, skilled workforce across the industry as the clean energy transition accelerates.
Charles Sturt Foundation Trust CEO Sarah Ansell welcomed the Transgrid scholarships.
"This is a valuable contribution. Not only does it support the next generation of cadet engineers, but it will also go on to have a significant impact on the engineering industry, solving workforce shortages," she said.
"The scholarship will help us meet future demand for engineers across regional Australia.
"The fact the recipients come from such a broad span of regional communities demonstrates the importance of the scholarship and the impact it will have on the regional workforce of the future."
Transgrid says it will also work with the university to help develop career pathways for the students through engineering cadet placements with the transmission network and other organisations across regional NSW.
Each scholarship recipient will receive $5000 annually over four years to support them during their studies so they can focus on achieving their full potential while at university.
The awarding of the first scholarships under the program follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Transgrid and Charles Sturt University to collaborate on opportunities for research, infrastructure, training and employment.
Applications for the 2024 scholarship program will open mid-this year. For more information, visit www.csu.edu.au/engineering/transgrid-scholarship
Mr Prior and Mr Glen were two of a number of CSU students who showed off their engineering smarts during the university's annual Rube Goldberg Machine afternoon back in March.
The Rube Goldberg challenge involves first-year engineering students creating a series of complicated, creative steps to perform a simple task.
