<p>FYI, Bucknell just posted on their website that they will be offering scholarships to incoming freshman for women in engineering. Just wanted to let you know that if you look at the schools sights sometimes these opportunities can be found. Too bad neither of my daughters want to be engineers!</p>
<p>@purplegirl,</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, why don't either of your daughters want to be engineers? What do they want to be?</p>
<p>Have you seen any of the discussions here regarding why women (and even men) don't go into engineering? Do you think anything that's been said here might sway their views?</p>
<p>I remember discussing engineering careers with a friend of mine who has a son in HS. He says his son is unlikely to pursue engineering - much more likely to pursue business. (FWIW, he also plays baseball, but is not seeking an MLB career.)</p>
<p>This might be a good opportunity to explore why some people don't go into engineering and if there is anything that could encourage them to do so.</p>
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Have you seen any of the discussions here regarding why women (and even men) don't go into engineering? Do you think anything that's been said here might sway their views?
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<p>Um... I'm sure that a lot of the things said here will sway their views, but I'm not sure it'll be in a pro-women-in-engineering direction...!</p>
<p>I'll offer a bit of my insight on the topic.</p>
<p>I'm a senior in high school, currently applying to 9 or 10 'engineering' schools around the country. My choice to major in engineering was based mainly on my ambition. In my whole life, I could never see myself being satisfied if I didn't contribute something meaningful to society. I wanted to have an impact on standard of living in a good way. I didn't see how I could achieve this as a lawyer, doctor, or other service trade. </p>
<p>I feel like if I go to school and study engineering, it will teach me a tool, make me smarter, and I will become a better problem solver. The combination of these three are a foundation from which I can begin to realize my goal.</p>
<p>In my own personal experiences, I have encountered far less females than males who share this same vision. For what reasons? I know not.</p>
<p>My daughter at bucknell now is a biology major, and plans to minor in math. I think she is interested in biological studies as in research, genetic, stem cell, etc. She (and I) hope that Bucknell offers her opportunities to find an area she is interested in to pursue. She is very bright and actually would have like to have gone to MIT but didn't get in. She is motivated and a high achiever. She lives in a dorm with alot of the engineer students and is impressed with how hard they work. But she doesn't seem interested in switching her major. I think the problem with many H.S. students is that they have no idea what an engineer actually is or what they do. My Son is a freshman in high school and he is following an elective track at our school which involves engineering type electives. I am thankful our school does provide this type of exposure to the field. I just wanted to share with cc readers that Bucknell is offering this scholarship (don't know details) in case anyone was interested.</p>
<p>Where are the recruitment drives and the scholarships for under represented men to enter the nursing and education fields? There seems to be exactly none. What am I missing? </p>
<p>Just asking.</p>
<p>good point!!</p>
<p>There is a wage gap between men and women. Therefore, women in engineering are considered an URM as it is a profession that can sustain them a nice living. That is why there are efforts to recruit them.</p>
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There is a wage gap between men and women. Therefore, women in engineering are considered an URM as it is a profession that can sustain them a nice living.
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<p>I'm calling BS on this one. If you consider all men and women and engineering, you're probably correct, but when you break it down by experience and function I doubt there are any real differences in pay if men and women do the same jobs. Women are considered URM's just because society wants us to believe men and women are equal and have interests/aptitudes toward everything equally at birth but then they get turned away from STEM during their adolescent years.</p>
<p>Honestly I don't think women should be tempted into engineering by scholarship money. There will be a lot of creepy guys in their classes.</p>
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I'm calling BS on this one. If you consider all men and women and engineering, you're probably correct, but when you break it down by experience and function I doubt there are any real differences in pay if men and women do the same jobs.
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<p>There's actually a lot of evidence indicating that there's a wage gap. I don't know if it's getting worse, but that's what a lot of government studies are saying.</p>
<p>Pay</a> Gap Between Men and Women Getting Worse, Census Data Shows</p>
<p>Women also get turned away from engineering because the message that a lot of our male colleagues send us is, "You're all pretty homely and you might not deserve to be here because you very possibly got extra assistance for being a woman, but please stand there so I can drool awkwardly over you. Dang, we should get some more girls around here!!"</p>
<p>I know that there are equivalently serious problems with men in women-dominant fields, too. I'm not as familiar with those problems.</p>
<p>I remember reading a while ago in (I think it was) the American Chemical Society's journal about the pay disparity between men and women that graduate from college with a BS in Chemistry. They found men were much more likely to go into industry and graduate level work that would pay better, and women tended towards education and other low-paying career tracks using their degree. However, within the various career tracks they found very little variation in pay by gender. Of course, this could be due to some sort of gender discrimination in various positions, but at least it seems to show that equal pay for equal work is there.</p>
<p>AT MIT in five of the eight engineering disciplines, women out number men. At Olin, Women are 45%. The top schools are pulling in many more women. And keeping them.</p>
<p>Check out "Digits<em>of</em>Pi.pdf" on the MIT aero/astro website. Sheila Widnall's presentation describing the different signs of academic/engineering success shown by hs women vs hs men is a keeper. MIT changed its admission criteria to ignore "guy thing = success" bias and instead base admission criteria on real, statistically valid indicators of success. </p>
<p>To determine if an engineering school is a "bad old" break-your-heart engineering school vs an integrated curriculum, structured for success for both men and women, take a look at the demographic mix of both freshman and sophomore classes. If the class shrinks more then 10 % and if more men then women are left, DON"T APPLY.</p>
<p>Being weeded out will shred your heart.</p>
<p>^^Let's see, you are a female applying, as an underrepresented, to a major or you are a URM. You apply to a reach, match and safety. You get into all three. Which one would you choose (financing being close to equal)? DUH.... The reason the MIT's, etc. and top LAC's have higher diversity or females in male dominated majors is simple. There is a limited # of these applicants, and if accepted at several schools, the applicant will choose the highest ranked or most prestigious.</p>
<p>There are 2 kids at MIT from my kids hs. One is a female w/ lower rank and SAT's than my D. I don't think she even got 700' on SAT's. My D was deferred/ denied Columbia, not for engineering. The other is an African American. He is smart but was not val. or sal. nor a NMS winner. </p>
<p>Another student, an African American, got into Colgate and Oberlin. He was not in the honors or advanced classes and was rarely on honor roll. Oberlin waived his application fee and allowed him to apply after the application due date. Another male in the class, w/ much higher class rank (#6/150), all advanced/honors classes and higher SAT was waitlisted at Colgate. And he really wanted to go there.</p>
<p>So all these top schools saying, " we can do it, why can't you?" is a lot of crap. I teach a a state college. We are suppose to be recruiting minority applicants. We do not get a lot of qualified applicants (having Phd 's in the appropriate field etc.), but if we do, the competition is fierce for hiring. They opt for colleges offering better salaries, teaching requirements. etc.</p>
<p>I think morrismm raises a good point.</p>
<p>There are only a limited number of minorities, and they will go to the top schools, even if lower-ranked schools actively recruit them.</p>
<p>We can either create more minorities ;), or we can give these lower-ranked schools the opportunities to create environments that attract minorities.</p>
<p>However, unless we totally reject the USNWR rankings, the top schools will still get the qualified minorities and the lower-ranked schools will be frowned upon for not creating more qualified minorities.</p>
<p>To those of you who support Affirmative Action, is it truly better to have a minority who will not succeed to increase your diversity? Does this dichotomy among races and genders not lower the standards for your program overall?</p>
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To those of you who support Affirmative Action, is it truly better to have a minority who will not succeed to increase your diversity?
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<p>Affirmative action infuriates me because it results in people who feel I don't deserve to be where I am, despite the fact that I've done better than people who were rejected from the places I've been and the positions that I've held.</p>
<p>Morrismm, there's more to college admissions than just rankings and SAT scores. Maybe they don't deserve to be there, but maybe the admissions committees saw more in these kids' applications than just numbers, or gender, or race.</p>