Sian Cornwell-Shaw MRICS is a Senior Surveyor at NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership and is also a RICS Stem Inspire Ambassador. Let's meet Sian.
I love being a RICS STEM Inspire Ambassador and working with teachers and schools and the RICS early engagement team. I have set up a forum for all the Welsh RICS STEM Inspire Ambassadors which commences in January to share our experiences and hopefully encourage more members to sign up to be ambassadors.
Surveying presents an intriguing and varied career journey. What motivated you to concentrate on property in particular?
I grew up on a farm so was very familiar with land and property and collected ground rents as a child. However, at sixth form my careers advice was to study a subject I enjoyed as a degree, so I undertook a degree in Sociology with no real vocation in mind. At the end of the degree, I knew someone doing a correspondence course in General Practice surveying at the College of Estate Management in Reading. It really interested me and I decided on completing my undergraduate degree to apply for the same course. I then contacted all surveying firms in my area in the hope I would be taken on as a trainee surveyor. I was lucky to get a position and they then took on sponsorship of my course.
Can you tell us a bit about your journey to becoming an RICS STEM Inspire Ambassador?
There are a dearth of surveyors in Wales largely due to there being no surveying courses in Universities in Wales for circa 20 years. This changed due to my Head of Property lobbying for surveying courses to restart at University of South Wales and the Real Estate course commenced in September 2023. Due to hosting a student studying this newly commenced Real Estate course via the Network 75 route I became acutely aware that students and pupils in colleges and schools had very limited knowledge of the vocation of surveying. I contacted the early engagement team about how we could raise more awareness of the vocation of surveying to school and colleges pupils and they asked if I would like to be a RICS STEM Inspire Ambassador which I signed up for.
Could you tell us more about the role?
The role of a RICS STEM Inspire Ambassador involves going into schools and colleges and doing talks about what surveying is, the route into the profession and my current role and interesting projects I have worked on. I do interactive activities with the students to bring what a surveyor does to lift in the classroom. I also attend careers fayres in schools and colleges to inform via a stand giving out literature to students.
Looking ahead, what excites you most about your future as an Inspire Ambassador?
I love being a RICS STEM Inspire Ambassador and working with teachers and schools and the RICS early engagement team. I have set up a forum for all the Welsh RICS STEM Inspire Ambassadors which commences in January to share our experiences and hopefully encourage more members to sign up to be ambassadors. I am also working with the University of South Wales and RICS Wales to try and organise a Surveying Day for all the students who are studying the GCSE and A level Built environment courses in South Wales.
What's been one of your most rewarding moments so far as an ambassador?
Building up a network within the schools and colleges has been rewarding they are so grateful for having talks and stands at careers fairs and also answering queries from students who we have sparked an interest about surveying in and pointing them in the right direction to hopefully become surveyors in the future.
What can the profession do to encourage the younger generation to think about a career in surveying?
Keep doing what they are doing, the more ambassadors the better to get the message out there about surveying careers. The early engagement team are fantastic at providing us with literature and information and doing all the work arranging all the talks for us.
And finally in what ways can the myRICS Community assist inspire ambassadors?
I think linking up all ambassadors would be beneficial, I think it can be daunting doing your first talk at a school so having a buddy system with an Inspire ambassador who has done won already would alleviate these concerns.