<p>The same reasons that there are many Asian engineers</p>
<p>I am a sophomore black female engineer in bioengineering. We DO exist, but of course blacks are a minority in engineering. </p>
<p>I think one point that hasn’t been mentioned (and if it has, I apologize in advance for not reading every post) is RETENTION. For example- in my engineering class, we started off with a good number of black students. However, by second semester almost half are gone, and by the end of the year, even more. Engineering is a hard discipline, so it’s not unfamiliar that many students drop out after freshmen year. However, the percentage of blacks dropping out of engineering is a higher percentage than all of the students dropping out. (note: this may only be in my school, I can’t speak for every college)</p>
<p>I think if we encourage blacks who are ALREADY in engineering, (and STEM majors) we will begin to see more blacks in engineering. We can get a hundred kids into an engineering school, but what’s the point if 60 of them drop out? My school has a tutoring and support program that encourage minorities in engineering. I am also part of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) chapter and we do a lot of tutoring and mentoring. Both program have worked really well, and more minorities (including blacks, hispanics, and the few women who join) are sticking with engineering.</p>
<p>It’s important to encourage more blacks to get into engineering, but lets not forget those who are already there- they need help too! And I think if we can get more blacks to graduate with engineering degrees, we will begin to see an increase.</p>
<p>Me being black myself with a slight profile of disability, I agree that schools should try to keep black students in engineering programs to boost representation. Probably one of the best ways to go about boosting black representation in the engineering field is influencing the black culture through music. Just consider hip hop videos, make the MC wear some preppy threads. Make up lifting music and make engineering seem gangsta sublimely, get some guy to wear a gold diamond studded sigma chain. Another good way to influence black culture is black sit coms like House of pain or Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby is more gear toward liberal arts in general, but one of the characters is engineer from the Navy. BET should try to see if they can pour an intellect mold into the culture, instead of vouching for shallow stereotypes.</p>
<p>I agree with Emi2008 on the retention issue. In fact, retention is one of the statistics that everyone should consider when entering an engineering program. A good retention rate could be the result of supportive student services, which we all hope for (convenient tutoring, study groups, accessable profs, undergrad research opportunities, freshman social programs, etc.) It could also be the result of more rigorous admission criteria (Do more students drop out of state school programs than out of top private programs? It could be that the weed-out just comes before admission in some schools but after admission in other schools.) In either case, retention should be strongly considered in the matriculation decision.</p>