Females in engineering

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Hello. A mother here. Hope you don't mind my asking this question (I usually hang out on the parent forum).</p>

<p>My youngest daughter is a HS Sophomore and is extremely good at and loves math and science. She's also talented in many other things and is well rounded, with art being one of them.</p>

<p>She has always known she wants a career in math and science, but could not narrow anything down. Though she (and I) know that she still has lots of time to choose, wanting to narrow down a direction is working on her. For all of her growing up years, the one thing she wanted to do was to become a doctor. However, she has changed her mind about that. For the last year, she has been thinking of going into some type of scientific research. But lately, the field of engineering, biomedical to be exact, has REALLY started to appeal to her.</p>

<p>I know that historically, engineering has been a male dominated profession. I know this is changing, but it still remains so I think. I guess it's some kind of fear that if a girl shows interest in science and math she is some kind of geek that no one wants to date or marry or some other kind of HORRIBLE misconception. My opinion: What could be more fascinating than a highly intelligent, motivated, self assured woman with a fantastic job? But anyway, I digress......</p>

<p>My question to you female engineering students, or potential female engineering students, or females that love math and science (or any males that want to add something), how are your experiences so far?</p>

<p>This is all for my personal knowledge as I am just seeking info for myself. I don't even think my daughter is worried about such things as fitting in anywhere as she has never had any trouble doing so. I have always taught my daughter to NEVER be ashamed of or try to hide her intelligence for the sake of trying to fit into the general public, or to impress a boy (some girls do this for some crazy reason). I feel that the best thing to do is to be yourself and if people are not intimidated by it, than those are the ones that really care for you. </p>

<p>But if you don't mind....I'd love to hear of your experiences. Personally, I can't think of anything better than being a female excelling in what was once (or still is) a male dominated profession like that. Oh, to be young with the world at my feet like you all are!!! :)</p>

<p>.</p>

2

<p>A lot of females are into Biomedical engineering iirc.</p>

3

<p>i'm interested in math & science as well, though i'm not brilliant at it like a couple of geniuses i know. sometimes it is awkward to be the only girl in a math club or a physics class because then i feel more pressured to show that i'm not just some incompetent girl. i also get a little frustrated when i can't find any girl friends who have the same interests.</p>

4

<p>When I went to the admitted students day with my son, I noticed alot of girls in the class and they were very attractive, too.</p>

5

<p>Many females choose to pursue the field of chemical engineering. Don't ask me why, but for some reason it's very popular! Biomedical engineering is a field that many pre-meds puruse as well, which is why it may be popular among females as well.</p>

<p>Personally, being an engineering major, I'm already in a small percentage of my school's population. Being female just closes off that group even more. My second semester calc class only has 5 people because everyone else dropped from last semester. To make matters even more complicated, I'm the only girl! The gap only widens as you go up the academic ladder. There are couple of different ways to look at this. </p>

<p>I remember when I was looking at engineering schools, I learned about the pi-to-one ratio. (Approximately, a 3-to-1 ratio of guys to girls.) Pursuing an engineering degree, regardless of gender, race, etc. takes a lot of nerve and dedication. I would suggest that your daughter do an internship or something along those lines to see if a career in the sciences is something she truly wants to pursue. I'm not sure if I answered your question, so let me know if there's anything else you want me to clarify or answer.</p>

6

<p>My daughter began to develop an interest in engineering in middle school. She attended several summer programs in science, and one specifically for h.s. girls interested in engineering. So, from the time she started looking into colleges, she was familiar with male/female ratio in engineering. She's ended up at an engineering school where the enrollment is about 45 % women. That's remarkably high, if you check around. </p>

<p>There are several female engineering students who post here regularly. A couple of them attend the same school as my daughter. I imagine they'll post thoughtful replies to your query before too long.</p>

7

<p>"My opinion: What could be more fascinating than a highly intelligent, motivated, self assured woman with a fantastic job?"</p>

<p>See, that's what I think! But I guess I'm biased. =)</p>

<p>I actually went to a high school with a focus on engineering, and now I attend MIT, so I've got 4 and a half years of experience with this topic. (Although the current freshman class at MIT is 47% female!) It's been my experience that guys LOVE to tell you that they find intelligent women attractive. It's also been my experience that what they tell you and what they actually do really don't match up too well. <em>grin</em></p>

<p>I personally never cared about being the only girl in a room, but lightfish is right. You may want to read Unlocking the Clubhouse. It focuses specifically on the lack of women in the computer science field, but the psychological phenomenon they discuss are pretty broad, I think. If a guy asks a question, he's just trying to learn more. If the one girl in the room asks a question, she's just this incompetent, underqualified person who doesn't understand what's going on and only got there because of affirmative action. While this is an exaggeration, there are definitely some people who see things that way, at least to an extent.</p>

<p>Honestly, affirmative action is the single hardest thing to deal with. Ironic, isn't it? There are people out there who love to use it as an excuse to wave away all of your accomplishments.</p>

<p>I think we've reached a point in our society where we've gotten rid of gender discrimination in name only. I mean, after 4 and a half years, I've never had someone say right out "oh you can't do that because you're a girl," because that would be considered socially unacceptable. As a woman in math/science/engineering/whatever, everything is open to you and often, people go out of their way to encourage you. But there are still a lot of very subtle, just-under-the-surface things you have to deal with. It makes it a little hard to be sure of yourself. Is my guidance counselor encouraging me to pursue engineering because she's genuinely interested in my education, or does she think it's her duty to pass along every girl who does well in math to the field of engineering?</p>

<p>For another example, pop culture isn't so kind to smart women. Even if lots of people respect it, that's definitely not what you see on TV. As for me, I think that being intelligent, motivated, etc makes me attractive, and that's good enough for me.</p>

<p>The bottom line is that it's a sticky world out there, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. =)</p>

8

<p>Ok. Im one of those girls from ChrisD's daughters school. </p>

<p>I was one of those girls who went into highschool having no clue what I was going to do. I was draged into the robotics club and suddenly had a "oh, this is fun!" moment. Engineering stuck after that. I started looking more and more into it and loving it. (Before then I thought I was going to be a history major) I went to an all girls highschool so I was a bit of a rare one. I think we turned out only one or two other engineers in a class of 111. </p>

<p>My senior year the quasi intro to engineering class we had didnt make as a class, so I went and took it at my brother school. so it was me and 7 boys. 7 very egotistical boys. I learned a lot in that class. Mostly how to tell boys exactly what I thought of them thinking i was stupid. I learned how to fight my way in a world that was clearly male dominated. It was a great experance. And one I didnt want to repeat.
So I chose a college with a high M/F ratio. I really didnt feel like that battle again. I've seen industry during a week long shadowing experance at the end of my senior year, and guys in industry are very welcoming to women in engineering. They loved having me around and really encouraged me to keep going in engineering. I knew once i got out into the real world, things would be looking pretty good. So i picked the school that had the most women. I did not want a repeat battle of my engineering class. I got "oh shes a girl, she cant do it" a few too many times. But now in college, I've not noticed much.</p>

<p>There are the little things of notice how guys are generally the leaders of everything, guys are normally starting new projects, guys are leading teams. But we havve a lot of guys with egos who just controll. and the girls we have a very down to earth and normal and try to create the least conflict. The school in general has noticed all of this. They are trying to make the school overall as balanced as possible, the faculty is nearly 50/50. They are noticing the males are always in leadership problem, and are trying to figure out what to do. I really love the school for owning up to its faults and dealing with them. (we also have some profs who would never let anything like this by them. ) </p>

<p>And I'd slightly tend to disagree with LauraN about being totally rid of gender discrimination. I have still found groups of people who have told me "oh, youre a girl, you cant do that. " It was hard to convince my traditional southern family that engineering was ok even though it was "a males world". There are still pockets that either knowingly, or unkowningly discriminate against women. No matter where you go, you will find them. You just have to pick where you think the fewest will be. I found where I think that will be.</p>

9

<p>Also an Oliner here: </p>

<p>I can't say I've experienced too much discrimination. I went to a high school with a high percentage of girls (and a local all guys high school tended to get most of the academically talented guys). Because of this my Calc BC class senior year was 1 guy and 5 girls. Not really a typical experience. Olin is also not exactly a typical experience. </p>

<p>Of course, whenever people hear that my brother graduated from a LAC and I'm in engineering school they always act surprised but meh. </p>

<p>I would advise your daughter to figure out what sort of gender balances she would feel comfortable with. I looked at RPI but but really didn't like the lack of gender balance there. I've hiked at Philmont twice and that taught me that I really don't want to be hugely outnumbered by guys.</p>

10

<p>"My daughter began to develop an interest in engineering in middle school. She attended several summer programs in science, and one specifically for h.s. girls interested in engineering. So, from the time she started looking into colleges, she was familiar with male/female ratio in engineering. She's ended up at an engineering school where the enrollment is about 45 % women. That's remarkably high, if you check around."</p>

<p>ChrisD, would you mind telling me what school your daughter goes to? I would love to find out schools of engineering where the female population is near what the male population is. You can PM me if you don't want to post it. Thanks!</p>

11

<p>Tomboy, I'd love to know what school you go to. PM me if you don't want to post it.</p>

<p>How in the world do you find out the male/female ratio in a school of engineering?</p>

12

<p>ChrisD's D, tomboy and I are all at Olin College (we post about it a lot so it's no secret).</p>

<p>It's easy to find the ratio for Olin because the school is only an engineering school. Slightly more complicated for other schools, but they might publish it?</p>

13

<p>"ChrisD's D, tomboy and I are all at Olin College (we post about it a lot so it's no secret).</p>

<p>It's easy to find the ratio for Olin because the school is only an engineering school. Slightly more complicated for other schools, but they might publish it?"</p>

<p>I just tried to go to Olin's website several times and I get the "page cannot be displayed" every time. I was wanting to read up on it.</p>

14

<p>That's odd. It's working for me. You're using <a href="http://www.olin.edu%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.olin.edu&lt;/a>, right?</p>

15

<p>"That's odd. It's working for me. You're using <a href="http://www.olin.edu%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.olin.edu&lt;/a>, right?" Yes, and I get "page cannot be displayed." I even turned off my firewall to see if that would help but it didn't.</p>

16

<p>Well, I just tried it in IE and opera too (I use firefox) with no problems. </p>

<p>You could try the text based site ( <a href="http://www.olin.edu/text/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.olin.edu/text/&lt;/a> ). Not very pretty but might get the job done.</p>

17

<p>For more Olin College info, read the posts on this forum site under "alphabetical list of colleges." Also I think there's info now on the Princeton Review site. </p>

<p>Hope you're able to get into the Olin site. . . .it just worked for me.</p>

18

<p>A few thoughts:</p>

<p>*Agree that affirmative action is the worst thing for women. I've had people say that I only got into engineering school because I'm a woman - nevermind perfect SATs, straight As, and varsity athletics. Grr!</p>

<p>*Yeah, there's a LOT that goes on underneath the surface. Don't be surprised by it.</p>

<p>*Don't overprotect your daughter out of her passions. Please, don't - you may as well tell her that her brain isn't good enough, a la Larry Summers. Same result.</p>

<p>*Men like "smart-but-not-as-smart" women. If she's smart, he'll look good - and if he's smarter, then she's not a threat. It's the new form of the trophy girl.</p>

<p>Finally - find women friendly engineering schools! My alma mater prides itself on being great for women. Not to bash MIT, but please check the percentage of women in *engineering, not women in the sciences and engineering. Biology, biochem, and "engineering lite" may skew the numbers. If she wants hard engineering (which is often the best for employment), then the percentages of women there is most important. Women-friendly also extends to "people friendly" things that women tend to like: lots of interaction with professors, small classes, opportunities for research, etc. </p>

<p>*Geography: the West Coast is a lot more friendly towards women than other areas of the country.</p>

<p>*Engineering can be a GREAT field for women who want the work/life balance and want families. It's "project-oriented," which is a lot better than business: you can wrap up your projects, go on maternity leave, return, and start new projects. You can also work 40-hour weeks and earn a nice salary. </p>

<p>*Oddly, engineering is more of a meritocracy than you would expect. I've appreciated this more for having been out of the field, but you can see that a lot of decisions are based on what you do, how good your work is, etc. Also, in terms of "women" stuff, R&D firms really need good writers - they say that the best engineers are the best writers, because they do good proposals and get money into the firm.</p>

19

<p>odd, Olin is working for me too. </p>

<p>and on the you only got into (instert school name here ) since youre a girl. I cant count the number of times I've gotten that. I dont think I want to either. Any time one of the guys said that to me I mentioned Olin and how none of them had the guts to apply. it shut them up rather quickly. I had one of them stay two hours after class to finish something I had already done so he wouldnt be shown up by me. </p>

<p>Most girls going into engineering realize that it may not be pretty at times, but its worth the reward if you really love it. After doing a week of shadowing and falling in love with it again, I realized that no matter how many times I was told no, it was worth it. I'm glad I had that light at the end of the tunnel. I knew that the year of half misery, half learning I went through was worth it. There are times its going to stink being one of the few. But I know in highschool I found people I could lean on when the guys ragged on me a little much. (Funny enough it was the male teacher who taught the class, his wife works as an engineer... talk about a role reversal. he also stays home to take care of the kids when they are sick. ) I've now found a friend whos in grad school who I complain to when things get rough. She's been in my shoes. She's one of the 10% female class getting her Masters in CivalE at UIUC this year.
Luckily Olin's not given me major issues. And thats another thing I love about it. The only issues I've had with it are normal engineering is driving me crazy Ill be fine in a day moments. I am able to focus on my education and not being one of few.</p>

20

<p>
[quote]
The only issues I've had with it are normal engineering is driving me crazy Ill be fine in a day moments.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Only one more semester of ICB. It gets better after that's over, I promise.</p>