Prospective women scientists...

Colleges and Universities A-Z Smith College
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<p>According to the following NY Times article, "science professors at American universities widely regard female undergraduates as less competent than male students with the same accomplishments and skills, a new study by researchers at Yale concluded."</p>

<p>Another reason to consider a women's college, and specifically Smith, if you're considering a career in the sciences:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/science/bias-persists-against-women-of-science-a-study-says.html?smid=fb-share%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/science/bias-persists-against-women-of-science-a-study-says.html?smid=fb-share&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>If after reading this article, you'd like to learn more about Smith's emphasis on science, take a look at these links:</p>

<p>News</a> Office</p>

<p>If you're a stellar student, you have the possibility of receiving a STRIDE scholarship which provides individual research with a professor for the first two years of college (plus $15,000 scholarship/year); you don't have to wait to do critical research till you're a junior or senior:</p>

<p>What</a> Can STRIDE Do for You? | Smith College</p>

<p>And here's a recent list of research projects for bio and bio/chem (check out the other subjects); I believe most of them were through STRIDE:</p>

<p>Smith</a> College: Celebrating Collaborations</p>

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<p>Full text of the actual study is here: [Science</a> faculty?s subtle gender biases favor male students](<a href=“http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109.full.pdf+html?with-ds=yes]Science”>http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109.full.pdf+html?with-ds=yes)</p>

<p>Not mentioned in the NYT write-up, but incredibly salient IMHO, is that scores on something called the Modern Sexism Scale were the only factor that correlated with bias against women. You can find a copy of the scale here: [Modern</a> Sexism Scale](<a href=“http://www.psychbytes.com/Quizzes/Modern%20Sexism%20Scale/Modern%20Sexism%20Scale.htm]Modern”>http://www.psychbytes.com/Quizzes/Modern%20Sexism%20Scale/Modern%20Sexism%20Scale.htm)</p>

<p>I hadn’t realized before reading the study that a stated belief that gender discrimination is a thing of the past is code for “I discriminate against women.” Even when it’s a woman saying it. As the mom of a girl who wants to grow up to be an engineer, I find that hugely disheartening.</p>

<p>AFAIK, Smith and Sweet Briar have the only ABET-accredited engineering programs that can be completed entirely at a women’s college. There are other women’s colleges that offer 3+2 programs, but the upper-level engineering courses are all through the coed +2 school.</p>

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<p>Allyphoe, thank you so much for the original study. With my daughter a senior at Smith, my sensitivity to gender discrimination has been heightened even more than before she attended.</p>

<p>Many of my daughter’s friends are science majors–neuroscience and bio/chem, marine bio, geology–to name a few. And I can think of two engineering majors right off the bat.</p>

<p>I hadn’t heard that Sweet Briar has a self-contained engineering program; I only know about Smith’s program which is over ten years old now and thriving.</p>

<p>Here are links to the Picker Engineering Program and engineering degree requirements:</p>

<p>[Smith</a> College: Picker Engineering Program](<a href=“http://www.science.smith.edu/departments/Engin/]Smith”>Engineering | Smith College)
[Smith</a> College: Picker Engineering Program](<a href=“http://www.science.smith.edu/departments/Engin/study_degree.php]Smith”>http://www.science.smith.edu/departments/Engin/study_degree.php)</p>

<p>And here’s the recently-built LEED building, Ford Hall, where this amazing work happens:
[Smith</a> College: Ford Hall](<a href=“http://www.smith.edu/fordhall/]Smith”>Smith College: Ford Hall)</p>

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<p>Sweet Briar’s program is young and tiny. I think they had one engineering grad on the last CDS report.</p>

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<p>Sweet Briar’s engineering program isn’t tiny as a percentage of the class…5.9 percent of the 2012 graduates majored in engineering. <a href=“http://sbc.edu/sites/default/files/Institutional_Research/CDS_2011-2012-PartJ.pdf[/url]”>http://sbc.edu/sites/default/files/Institutional_Research/CDS_2011-2012-PartJ.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Only 2 percent of the 2012 Smith graduates majored in engineering.
<a href=“http://www.smith.edu/ir/documents/SmithCollegeCDS_2011-2012_003.pdf[/url]”>http://www.smith.edu/ir/documents/SmithCollegeCDS_2011-2012_003.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Of note:

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<p>[College</a> Offers Engineering Fused with Liberal Arts for Women | The Women’s College Coalition](<a href=“http://www.womenscolleges.org/story/womens-engineering-program]College”>Women's College Coalition | Directory of Women's Colleges & Degrees)</p>

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<p>To be fair, women who are not STRIDE recipients and are interested in doing research do not have to wait until their junior or senior year to do so.</p>

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<p>CrewDad, thanks for the clarification about doing non-STRIDE research before junior or senior year. Sorry about that. </p>

<p>I have a question about the Common Data Set numbers for engineering. For Engineering, it says 2% (14 graduating students) but then the line below has no percentage and it says Engineering Technologies (15 graduating students). Does that mean a total of 29 graduating engineering students or what?</p>

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<p>A relatively new option within the engineering program is the bachelor of arts in engineering. I am guessing that the discrepancy between those two numbers (14 vs. 15 students) is that the 14 is B.S. students and the 15 is B.S. + B.A. students. The program is also growing considerably. The class of 2013 is probably a bit shy of 40 students and the class of 2014 is similar, if not larger.</p>

<p>As far as research, positions are available early on for non-STRIDE students as long as you are willing to look for them and talk to professors. I started doing research the summer after my first year, and have been doing it (though now in a different lab) ever since.</p>

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<p>I wonder where I got the 1 from, then? Because they graduated 139 women, which would be 8 engineering majors. </p>

<p>Ah! I bet I picked the 1 up from the ABET database, which would have only counted the women in the BS program, which is accredited, not the BA program, which isn’t. ABET does list Sweet Briar as having 1 (although I’m looking at my Excel file, not the ABET website, so I couldn’t tell you what year). Smith had 24.</p>

<p>Hard to know whether a given kid would be better off in a smaller program that’s all women, or a bigger program that has more women - Georgia Tech has 355 women engineering graduates in the ABET database (but only 22% of the total engineering grads were women).</p>

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<p>Carolyn, the CDS can be confusing. The numbers on the right hand column are not the number of students who graduated in a respective major. Each major is assigned a category number. </p>

<p>Agriculture is number 1… Natural resources and conservation number 3… Architecture, number 4… Area, ethnic, and gender studies, 5… Communication/journalism, 9…Communication technologies, 10…Computer and information sciences, 11…Personal and culinary services, 12 and so on…I’m sure you get idea.
Also, the total of the numbers is > 1300, which is a tad more than the 2012 graduating class. ;)</p>

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<p>No telling where ABET got their numbers from, then. I’m glad to know there are two decent-sized programs!</p>

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<p>Nope, but I wouldn’t worry about it.
A sampling of alumnae who graduated with a B.Sc. Engg
[Alumnae</a> | Sweet Briar College](<a href=“Engineering • Sweet Briar College”>Engineering • Sweet Briar College)</p>

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<p>Engineering 2012…24 students.
<a href=“http://www.smith.edu/registrar/documents/MajorsatGraduation2000-on.pdf[/url]”>http://www.smith.edu/registrar/documents/MajorsatGraduation2000-on.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;