My daughter would tell some funny stories early in college about how many men’s rooms she had to walk past to find the one women’s room and what that women’s room would be like when she finally found it. Good news is IIT had corrected that problem by the end of her four years there.
I was once at a SWE (Society of Women Engineers) weekend convention at MIT when they were on spring break. I’m sure it is different now, but in 1983 the ladies rooms were few. Since the campus was empty, a few of us may have unofficially used men’s room. At Clarkson (about 25-30% women) there was actually good restroom equity 
Same bathroom issue at UT, ha.
Glad to hear the positive stories from working engineers. I hope parents don’t scare off their daughters from the field.
Many years ago I was interviewing a woman applicant at an engineering college. At the end of each interview, parents would often be invited to join the interview. Like her father, she wanted to be a civil engineer. Dad was an alumnus.
Mom ran up the stairs ahead of Dad and breathlessly warned that Dad was dead set against his daughter pursuing that career. Mother was OK with it.
Dad’s reasoning, he wanted to insulate his daughter from all the foul language she would hear on construction sites
His daughter persisted and pursued CE.
@retiredfarmer ha! I heard more swearing in my all girls dorm than I did in all my years as an engineer! The dorm was about 3/4 sorority girls. Lots of Texas debutantes. ?
The female friends of Lake Jr. at engineering school were very engaged in campus life and were campus leaders, despite the fact that the campus is only 25% women. Both ended up with great jobs after graduation.
I started at a big corporation with very little off color language or comments (at least in front of me. My first officemate was deeply religious (and super conservative but kind to me). He was protective of me if another coworker accidentally let a swear word slip. Probably I was less offended than him. It was a good lesson to me that it might not be obvious who takes offense at what.
I started working in 1985 and have worked for both large corporations and small engineering companies. Bad language was rarely an issue, especially at the big companies. The presidents of both of the small companies I worked for (both in Maine @MaineLonghorn) had salty language, but I didn’t let it bother me.
My daughter spent a summer interning on a manufacturing floor, and while she did fine, I don’t think she loved the environment. But, that could be the case for anyone, male or female.
In general, I have not been treated differently from my male counterparts throughout my career. I was, on occasion, offered an opportunity because I am a woman. A handful of times, I suspected a bias against women engineers. In later years, I learned some of those people weren’t nice to anyone, and it wasn’t just my gender. A few times, I was asked to fix the Xerox machine or arrange a lunch 
Early update from my D who just started week 4 of her co-op at a polymer manufacturing plant. There are only 3 women out of a team of 40 engineers, including her. The head of manufacturing is a female chem e who took her immediately under her wing. Despite the gender imbalance she is LOVING it! She said everyone is super happy to have her on board and she’s been feeling very supported. She spends her morning with the line operators learning the processes and hearing about the challenges and issues, and afternoons analyzing data to find ways to improve efficiencies. She already completed a new lock out/tag out safety project which now she needs to train operators on, and is also working on an audit of the FDA commercial mixer used for drug coatings. She feels like she’s learning a ton and that it’s a great culture at this plant. Later this summer she’ll be involved in re-laying out the plant for new lines/equipment and getting them integrated into the existing systems.
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@momofsenior1 That is great to hear! Sounds like she is learning and doing a lot. Manufacturing can be a fast-paced and fun environment, depending on the industry.
@VMT “A handful of times, I suspected a bias against women engineers. In later years, I learned some of those people weren’t nice to anyone, and it wasn’t just my gender.”
Yes! It’s important to remember this.
I think the main time I AM treated differently is when guys swear and then apologize, ha.
Thanks for the positive stories.
Maybe now with the new forum index, more people will find the engineering forum and this thread.
Hello, just want to say my D has been accepted for electrical engineering and the engineering department at our local state university (Texas Tech) gave her 14K in renewable scholarship. She is feeling the love. So excited for her.
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I grew up in a town where a major Bell Labs was located. We had many smart kids in our class…both male and female. I remember being taken out for advanced math even starting in 5th grade. I never felt any pressure not to do well as a female nor discriminated against.
In the early 80’s i went to Case Western Reserve University and majored in Electrical Engineering. There were many more males than females but once again, I never experienced any issues. II do remember being the only female in my Multivariable Calc class. I was able to get a summer job as an engineer at IBM. When I graduated I was hired by Bellcore (a Bell Labs spin off)…they were a company that had the culture of AT&T and that included affirmative action classes, etc. When I had babies I had no issue being able to work part time until they got a bit older.
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Good story. Thanks for sharing!
When I read such stories, firstly I get to know the world more, and secondly I am simply incredibly happy for such stories, without drama and problems.
Thanks again.
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I went to engineering school from 1977-1981 for Electrical Engineering, about 5 women in total of all engineering specialties, I don’t think I was treated any differently, it helps that I grew up with 4 brothers. I always had very high salary compared to all of my brothers in engineering, most likely because my negation skills. First job out of college thanks to joining SWE, I found there ware already tons of women in engineering in a large East Coast based company, so I don’t know why it’s a big deal today for women to be in engineering.
My daughter graduated from CS in 2017, never had any problem either, there were a lot of women in CS at her school. She didn’t do any engineering activity like Robotics in high school, most likely because she went to the first meeting and didn’t like some of the guys hogging all the attention, she sat around for a few hours doing nothing. However, in the summer before Senior year in high school, she was accepted to WTP at MIT and they did introduce some program concepts, but she didn’t think she was quick to solve some of the problems either, no natural tendency toward programming at all. She’s strong in math and was thinking of doing Math in college, but luckily she didn’t and she’s much happier with her choice. Since graduation, she’s been promoted every year, worked along side with many people from Yale, UPenn,etc. , much bigger name than her college even, and she held her own. My suggestion is not to have any preconceived notion about girls in STEM, there’s always a lot of women in engineering even back 40 years ago. In fact, my daughter never join SWE in college even. After her freshman year, she’s a tutor in CS until senior year, had paid internship every summer, graduated in 4 years, and never took more than 16 units per semester(at most).
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Not an engineer yet, but I’m a junior in HS who wants to do EE. I’m scared it’s going to suck the life out of me because I have a low stress tolerance and I’m a perfectionist. I fell in love with electronics and now the possibly that I go to college only to be behind everyone else and drop out feels like a nightmare.
Is it really as hard as everyone says it is?
Yes…and no.
There is a lot of work in getting an engineering degree - no point sugar-coating it! How hard the work is, and how hard it feels are different questions. Some classes are likely to feel pretty brutal- but others are likely to be a lot of fun!
Figuring out more about how you work is important. For example, you have some control over your “low stress tolerance”, starting with what you consider ‘stress’. Collegedad’s job is seen by most people as extremely stressful- but he says “it’s only stressful if you aren’t having fun”. Stress-testing is a big part of all engineering- so figure out your own limits! What is the difference- for you- between something that is really challenging (which is a good thing) and something that is stressful (not so good)? Can you work on recognizing that? What can you do to move the dial from stress to challenge?
Similarly, perfectionism, in its constructive form, is a serious asset to an EE! Bringing that part of you to bear on your work will help you be better at your job. But, in its destructive form, perfectionishm undercuts your confidence and sucks the fun right out of the job. So, how do you flag for yourself when it’s constructive to be a perfectionist, and when it’s destructive- and then re-route the one to the other? Consciously working on that will make your path happier- and more successful.
From your other threads your teacher says that you are at the upper end of the class that is tormenting you. The kinds of %s you are seeing are not uncommon in engineering classes (I have seen a stat that the average GPA nationally for engineering majors is a 2.9).
You have such a great start: you have something that you find genuinely interesting, and at which you seem to be pretty adept. That puts you ahead of many, many of your peers. So, build on that strength: when your confidence starts to wobble, go do some homework on engineering programs. It will take you a while to shortlist the best ones for you (ie, ones that emphasize hands-on work from the beginning, ones who let you focus on EE right from the outset, ones whose overall program looks good to you). Engineering programs vary more than you might realize, so find the ones that look as though they are a good fit for you.
Engineering programs won’t accept you if they aren’t confident that you can go the distance. On your other thread lots of (experienced) posters here saying the same thing as your teacher: you are doing fine. Don’t give up on yourself. This is the first serious hurdle you have hit- and it won’t be the last. If I could gift you one thing right now it would be confidence!
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Bumping this thread to see if there any more women engineers who could chime in.