Inspirational computing student shortlisted for NextGen award

The 19-year-old, from Northolt in London, is recognised for mentoring young learners from lower socio-economic backgrounds and encouraging more girls to pursue STEM subjects.

Aurelia moved from Poland to the UK as a child and, after receiving support herself, is passionate about helping others to access educational opportunities.

“It was especially difficult as I was in a country foreign to me with little access to the resources I needed to succeed. This meant that it became tough and caused me to once bring in an Argos catalogue for reading time at school as I simply did not have any other books.

“I came from an immigrant household and I could barely read but when I got help from other people to start reading I excelled in my class. Me giving back that opportunity to people in my area means a lot to me.”

As a teenager, Aurelia found a passion for teaching and has been tutoring disadvantaged students from her hometown in her spare time for over five years.

“I’ve acquired a variety of students, mostly girls, and watching their progress climb from when they struggle to do basic maths to performing algebra is absolutely amazing.”

Aurelia received an Amazon Future Engineer bursary to support her BSc (Hons) Computer Science studies at Staffordshire University and through this is part of a network which aims to address the underrepresentation of women in engineering and technology.

She is also a Student Representative for the Computing Department, helps to run the Student Unions’ Computing Society and has ambitions to become a Cloud Computing Engineer.

Aurelia added: “It’s absolutely thrilling to be shortlisted for this award, especially being able to represent Staffordshire University.”

Aurelia is now hoping that her peers will vote for her in the NextGen Awards which will be decided by a public vote open until 15 November.

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