<p>I've always been interested in engineering and I'm pretty good in math and science. However, my mom discourages me from majoring in engineering in college because it is a competitive and ever-changing field. For a girl who plans to eventually get married and have children, it would be difficult to dedicate so much time to constantly update my knowledge in order to make myself still useful to a company when i start to get old and wrinkly. Should I, despite being kind of a feminist, give up being an engineer for a more "girly" field?</p>
<p>..that's so much of a personal decision that it'd be hard for anyone to comment; look at surgeons for instance--they dedicate TONS of time to their profession, and often, their family life suffers--many women chose not to become doctors for this very reason</p>
<p>personally, if I were in your situation, I'd go for engineering and worry about my family later</p>
<p>Ok, I'm what people (at least up here ) call a raging feminist.
Do it.
Do not let any one stop you from doing what you want to do.
If you love it, you will want to do these things, and not care that they are taking up time. I know a few women engineers who have kids (I say a few since the ratio in industry is still around 3:1 if I remember correctly) and they make it. one of them is doing better than a lot of the guys i know. wait, now that im thinking about it, most of them.
What makes engineering fun to me is the fact that it is always changing and nothing stays the same. </p>
<p>I'd highly encourage you to go for it. I know there is at least one other person here who would. I've done it and never looked back. I realize I'll have to deal with family later, but to me engineering is just another job, and i have a feeling any company i go to should be flexible enough to handle things.
It's all up to you, make a list of things on each side pros and cons. See which side you like more. Also think if you could live with out doing one side, thats how i picked my college, I couldnt live with myself if I didnt come here.</p>
<p>What they said.</p>
<p>I'm a girly girl. I love the idea of being a stay-at-home mom. I definitely want kids some day, and I want to be the one raising them.</p>
<p>...and yet, here I am, at the creme de la creme grad program in my male-dominated engineering field. Lord knows I'd be the only soccer mom on the block who knows how to weld. Still, engineering's what I want to do, and it's what I love to do. I'm absolutely passionate about tromping around construction sites. I think it's fantastic.</p>
<p>I've heard so many people say, "It's an either/or thing," in reference to careers and motherhood, in that you can only do your absolute best at one or the other, but I'm sure going to try to do both. It's going to be the greatest trial of my life, and I know that. I'm prepared for that. My "prove-them-wrong" attitude helps out; I'm immensely stubborn when it comes to proving myself in engineering and in life. After all, everyone <em>also</em> said that in college, you can sleep, study, or party, but you have to pick two, you can't do all three. Well, I did all three, and I did them with gusto, darn it!</p>
<p>It's a matter of setting your priorities. Any field you go into is going to be a rapidly changing field, and anything you pursue is going to have its challenges. It's just a matter of going out there, deciding what's important to you, rolling up your sleeves, and taking on the world.</p>
<p>I think it's exciting.</p>
<p>ok.. thank you!!! I needed that reassurance!</p>
<p>I'm a (somewhat rabid) feminist.</p>
<p>I'm also - having left engineering - utterly convinced that it's a GREAT field for women (and wondering why I left - in part because of the assumptions that women are discriminated against, but I'm finding that it's worse in other fields!). If you pick the right undergrad school, you will be among other women - smart, talented, ambitious, sensible women. (I love women engineers - they're brilliant and level-headed.) Engineering is amazing in that it's really a meritocracy - in ways you can't understand until you've seen it and seen something else. It's really all about the quality of work that you produce - and trust me, your experiments don't care that you're a girl.</p>
<p>Engineering can be great for women who want families. It's very project-based, so you can wrap up projects when you are pregnant, take maternity leave, and, upon your return, start new projects. That also lends itself very well to part-time work. Furthermore, many people can make it genuinely a 40-hour week job - which is rare for a professional field. </p>
<p>Ignore Larry Summers. He's a moron with an economics degree - notice his lack of science background.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, ariesathena, Larry Summers is not a moron, which makes his attidude all the sadder. People who reach high positions are usually smart but they are often still "idiots" in the generic sense.</p>
<p>As to the original poster, there are too many moms (and dads) that discourage their daughters from going into engineering and, in fact, that is one of the reasons more do not. Perhaps it is because many moms and dads have some familiarity with what elementary school teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, dentists, accountants, physical therapists, pharmacists, optometrists, veterinarians and other professionals do but really have little to go on when it comes to engineers who, to many in the nation, are kind of a mystery group. The thing is all those professions I just mentioned, which mom and dad may actually support your doing, are competitive, ever-changing, have the potential of interfering with family plans, and require you to constantly update your knowledge. (And many mothers who are in those professions will tell you that all of them are easier than motherhood.) In other words, do not be discouraged by generalizations and give it a try if you think you are interested.</p>
<p>The career that a person starts out with today will most likely NOT be the career they have at age 35, 45, 50 or retirement. There is no crystal ball that tells us what careers people will even exist 20 years from today.</p>
<p>And what field today is not competitive and ever changing?</p>
<p>I don't know the answer, but I suggest seek out a bunch of women engineers and talk to them.</p>
<p>When I practiced engineering, my firm was overwhelmingly male-dominated. There were few professional females there at all, and none in leadership positions.</p>
<p>Find out what options may exist for going part-time or stopping out altogether for a period, if the stay-at-home mom thing is an option you are interested in preserving. Jobs vary a great deal in their "mom-friendliness".</p>
<p>If it is your passion, go for it!</p>
<p>I studied petroleum geology in the late 1970's-early 1980's: certainly a male dominated field then (perhaps now too). I think I selected the field as much to prove that I could do it as from a genuine love of geology. It turned out to be a great field for me straight out of school and I thrived for many years. I must admit, however, that it became much more difficult after I was married and had kids. I was not nearly so interested in spending weeks out on a drilling rig in Wyoming as I had been when unattached. If I had had the passion for what I was doing, I'm sure I could have made it work. I didn't, however, and ultimately decided that 11 years in that career was enough.</p>
<p>I picked up a new degree and career (Human Resources Management) and found it much more to my liking and much easier to balance work and family. I don't tell you this to discourage you - remember that FMLA didn't even exist when I had my babies; so much has changed in society and the workplace since then! </p>
<p>You should, however, realize that you may change in ways you can't even imagine as you get older and develop different priorities. As long as you are willing to reevaluate your goals and choices as time goes on, there is no reason you shouldn't follow whatever dream you have now.</p>
<p>Just follow your heart , and listen to your voice, no one else. :]</p>
<p>
[quote]
seek out a bunch of women engineers and talk to them.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Most colleges have a chapter of the Society for Women Engineers (<a href="http://www.swe.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.swe.org/</a> ). You might want to take a look there if you want more info into how different practicing engineers handle family, job, etc.</p>
<p>And yes, while engineering may be a male dominated field, that won't change if women decide not to pursue the field due to said domination. If there is a dearth of role models, what better way to help the situation than to become one?</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I'm an engineer. My wife's an engineer. We're raising our daughter to be an engineer (which is her aspiration, like yours). The field is wide open to women and you should have no hesitancy to pursue it. My wife was home with the kids for several years, and so was I (great time of life, by the way). Getting back into work is not hard if you have done some good projects before the kids arrive.</p>
<p>What are the rates of women in certain degrees, I don't think i've ever seen the Bureau of Labor Statistics put out a report about it, might be interesting.</p>
<p>if you are good looking, yes please, for the love of GOD, come to engineering...even if you are not..join the crowd</p>
<p>Do it. Just think of all of the awesome engineering guys you'll meet :P. </p>
<p>But seriously definitely do it because a simple career choice will never make you unmarriable. If you want to do it there are certain majors that are more girl filled than others. ChemE, GE, and CivE/MechE have the most girls I'd say [ChemE can be more than half, GE is about half, and the others are a decent {10-30%} percentage girls]. Somebody already had the idea to look up your local chapter of SWE (pronounced Swee). </p>
<p>I will add that some guys will be intimidated by your choice of majors but who wants guys that are intimidated by successful women. It does provide a lot of interaction with guys for a girl so it could be helpful understanding guys (for some reason we are "confusing" to many women) and most girls I've met with boyfriends in engineering date outside the engineering majors.</p>
<p>Study what interests you. What good is it to major in a field that doesn't call to you just because you think it will be compatible with raising a family? And do you really think that careers in traditional female fields such as teaching and nursing are any less stressful and demanding?</p>
<p>All the women engineers I know have families -- and for the most part they are happily married and have great kids. Get in contact with some women engineers and ask them how they combine work and family.</p>
<p>And, one more suggestion -- perhaps consider civil engineering. Municpalities and States hire civil engineers to work on city planning, roads, water plants, environmental remediation sites, etc. Lots of time these government jobs have more regular schedules and better benefits than those of industry and consulting engineering firms.</p>
<p>I wish the ratio were 3:1! It's more like 8:1 in EE and MechE and about 5:1 overall.</p>
<p>3:1 in my aerospace classes at ucsd :)</p>
<p>I refuse to date engineers. Nothing against y'all, but I had too many bad experiences with engineer guys. I've now realized that men who want to be lawyers aren't great, either. There's a fair amount (just more than average) of arrogance among those two fields (with women lawyers - not so much with women engineers) that makes them, IMO, impossible to date. </p>
<p>I've never lived my life according to what other people think of me. I've also never lived my life and avoided my passions because "it's a tough world out there." "It's a tough world" is a reason to not go to Iraq, not to cheat yourself out of the best education you can get.</p>