Where are the women?
A companion piece to "The future of engineering," celebrating T&MW's 25th anniversary.
-- Test & Measurement World, 9/1/2006
COMPLETE ANNIVERSARY COVERAGE: Contents, September 2006 |
Professors and school administrators acknowledge that too few women in engineering poses a problem, and the students notice it as well. We interviewed many professors, students, and professionals who cited the issue of girls losing interest in the sciences around sixth grade. Professor Richard Vaz from WPI explained, “A lot of people believe it has to do with social pressures, and social messages about gender-specific roles.” Engineering remains a male-dominated field, which might be intimidating to young women considering it for a career choice.
Ben Hutt, an engineering student at Northeastern, offered his take on female engineering students: “I think they have to break through the 'do you really think you can do it?' stage first, but after they show that they are, in fact, able and willing to do the work, they get a lot of help, and maybe more than others, because women engineers are seen as a rarity.”
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| The percentage of women engineering students grew between 1979 and 1998. Source: Society of Women Engineers. |
How can society encourage women to become engineers? There are several ways. For instance, a strong role model, especially a female role model, is an important factor to many women choosing to enter engineering. People are more likely to become engineers when they see a family member or close friend working in the field. Didi Smith, an engineering student at University of California at Santa Barbara, explained that she became interested in engineering when her dad helped her build her first circuit in fourth grade. Her father is an engineer and encouraged Didi to become interested in science and math.
Girls who attend elementary schools with a strong science curricula are more likely to enter a scientific field because they recognize all the exciting opportunities that science can offer. Because students must declare the engineering major by their first year of college to allow enough time to complete all the required classes, middle schools and high schools must put extra energy into the sciences to demonstrate to students, especially female students, all the career opportunities available.
Women tend to be interested in fields dealing directly with people, such as teaching or healthcare. Therefore, teachers and mentors must emphasize the humane side of engineering and point out that it can certainly help people—bioengineers create artificial limbs, while civil engineers build water lines for areas hit by natural disaster. Professor Vaz elaborated: “There's a lot of research that suggests very strongly that women choose career paths that they can see leading to meaningful careers. Women are far more interested than men in careers where they can make a difference, make the world a better place, and help people. They are statistically more likely to be searching for a helping profession. Engineering is a helping profession, but it does not present itself as such.”
Perhaps the final way to draw more women into engineering is to recruit girls while in high school, by holding camps and workshops run by current professionals. At Georgia Tech, engineering student Kathryn Taylor is involved with a summer camp that works with local children, getting them excited about science. She explained, “We're putting up displays, doing music synthesis, learning how to do a hot air balloon, just small experiments and expositions that show what engineering is and what engineers do.”
Engineering is not an easy major, and consider the added stress if you are trying to prove yourself because you are one of the only women in your department. That is where support groups such as the Society for Women Engineers, Women in Science and Engineering (WISE), and Women in Computer and Electrical Engineering come in. These groups provide women with mentors and networking connections when they search for jobs.
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Tamra Kerns |
For the most part, women entering the engineering profession won't find themselves alone. Telle Whitney, trained as a computer scientist and now president of the nonprofit Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, commented, “I think there is a great community of women in engineering who support each other.” Events like the Workshop for Women in Design Automation, for which Whitney serves as a steering committee member, provide venues for such support.
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Shelley Gretlein |
Shelley Gretlein, LabView Real-Time and Embedded group manager at National Instruments, summed it up: “We, as engineering leaders, need to ensure that engineering is considered 'cool' and 'fun.' It needs to be a career that is sought after. It's a challenge and a privilege to be an engineer. We're the ones solving the tough problems that make the world a better place—from getting to Mars to curing cancer. [It is] a field designed and optimized for the best and the brightest. . . women!”—Amy Laskowski
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Complete anniversary coverage:
-The future of engineering
-Where are the women?
-Is engineering a profession?
-Industry and academia form symbiotic relationship
-The engineers of K-12
