xihnnn

Hi! I'm a junior in mechanical engineering.
In my experience a lecture of 60 students usually has ~10 girls. The gender imbalance doesn't really bother me, though it does make me feel like I have to hold myself to a higher standard (like there's no point in sticking around in this major if I'm not going to really excel). Thankfully I've never encountered any sex discrimination or disrespect. These days girls are strongly encouraged to pursue careers in science/engineering/CS, so if you love math/science and solving problems by all means go for engineering!
SWE is a great society to join and though I'm not involved a know a lot of girls who found it helpful and made some great connections! Engineering is a tough but very fulfilling major so don't feel intimidated by the smaller percentage of girls in it (for now hehe)

ffishes

A question for anyone who is currently an engineer/has some experience in any related field.

I'm a high school senior who loves science and math, and I'm pretty sure I want to go down some sort of engineering path (maybe aerospace? not sure.) I know engineering in general is still a male-dominated field and I'm ok with that, but visiting some schools and hearing that 10-25% of the student body is female is pretty depressing. If you're currently in school, do you notice this? If you're a girl, do you ever think about the gender ratio? Does it both you? Does your school provide any special opportunities/groups (SWE, scholarship, mentoring etc) to girls in engineering in particular? I currently go to an all girls school, so I don't have any personal experience with this. I've never seen this question here before, so I thought I'd ask!

MaineLonghorn

I was a female engineering student in the early 80s and never had any problems. I was treated as "one of the guys" for the most part. I did meet my future husband in grad school, though. I never found the male/female ratio depressing. I just made lots of guy friends!

Now when I go to professional meetings, I'm often the only woman in the room. Sometimes there's one other female. It does feel odd, but I'm used to it. The main way I'm treated differently is that almost always, if a male speaker uses even a mild swear word, he'll look directly at me (seated in the crowd) and apologize! It cracks me up.

Years ago, I attended a SWE meeting and didn't like it - most of the women had gone through divorces and went back to engineering school. They were so bitter about men! I hope it's different now.

TaciturnType

At some tech schools, it's a bit of a problem. The lowest percentages now are about 30% female, I believe (I could be wrong). I remember when I was considering going to RPI, there was a huge debacle over RIBS (ratio-induced b syndrome) going on. From what I could gather, however, most of it was just putting up posters around campus and writing nasty opinions online. I didn't get the impression that people were going around talking about this face-to-face all the time. I guess I'd say if you attend a tech school with less than 40% females, it's likely to come up at some point. It probably won't be overwhelming, but it will be there.

At more broad universities (and tech schools like MIT and CMU) where the ratio is about even, it's pretty much a non-issue while you're in school. People don't only make friends with other people in their major, so there's half of the university to make friends with. They won't discriminate against you for being in engineering as long as you don't complain about how much more work you have to do and talk about engineering-related things all the time. This is likely different in the professional world, but in terms of college anyways, you won't notice the difference unless you're at a tech school.

failure622

I'm an EECS major at a not tech school, and technical classes for me have always been about 90% guys. Is it a problem? Not really, just means you should get used to having a lot of guy friends. You'll also have to take humanities/GE courses at some point (maybe not at a tech school, but at most colleges) and those tend to be 50/50, if not mostly girls.

So sure, it's noticeable, but it's not really bothersome. People are people.

happyORmom

"Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles, and Momentous Discoveries" by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne is a must read for any one that wants to do something but feels like the odds are against. The work culture for women in engineering these days is not what these women had to go through.

I am one of the two women engineers at our site and I love my job and the work culture.

hylyfe

usually i notice its the guys that tend to complain.... not the girls....

SobeGreenTea972

In college, I think people could care less about gender. There's bigger thing in mind, GPA, job, tests, etc. That's what I think. Students are more matured not like HS, worrying about appearance, name brand clothes or whatever. There's not punks, thugs, preps in college; everyone just minding their own business to earn their degree that they are "paying" for.

ucbalumnus

All ABET accredited engineering degree programs have humanities and social studies breadth requirements (yes, even Brown, which has no breadth requirements for other majors).

However, if the school is almost exclusively a STEM school (e.g. Caltech, the "Mines"/"Mining" schools, PINYU, WPI, Olin, etc.), then those humanities and social studies courses will have the same students (and gender ratio) that you see in your science and engineering courses.

gsmomma

I am a female engineering manager, and about 25% of my employees are women. When i was in school in the 80s, the percentage was only about 10%. My D attends one of the 'tech schools' and the ratio tipped over 30% in recent years.

The saying on campus is that the ratio is more 50:50, since half of the guys spend their time in their rooms and are not social. She also is in a sorority, and is involved in many campus activities, so she has a good mix of male and female friends.

sacchi

I'm a woman engineer, on CC as a parent. Yes, of course, women in engineering (both college and the workforce) feel the imbalance in the male/female ratio. In my personal experience, I think that overt discrimination is rare, as engineering tends to be a meritocracy, where what matters the most is how good of a job you can do.

If you are concerned about the imbalance, I suggest looking into colleges that are not just tech schools. So, that while engineering classes will have an imbalance, the college as a whole will be balanced, so you'll have lots of opportunities to make both male and female friends.

ThisIsMichigan

Plus you get some awesome bonuses. Like when a scholarship or internship or something says females are "strongly encouraged to apply "

MomfromKC

The precentage is and has been 20-25% for about 30 years now. That is just simply the % of women who are interested. I've never had any problem with it. I prefer the company of men. They are more logical and don't mind my tendency to skip over the touchy feely stuff. Now when you get out in the work force the women tend to thin out after about 10 years. First of all we married other engineers and have the option to stay home to raise our children. Then when the kiddos are big enough we have a habit of starting our own businesses, cause hey we can. So you don't see all that many managers in corporate who are women, but if you look a little wider we are still here.

MaineLonghorn

Good points, MomfromKC. The business that DH and I have is owned 51% by me, so it's a woman-owned firm. I don't let him forget it, either.

MaineLonghorn

Including me, there were three women out of about 25 at a professional engineering meeting last night. It annoyed me that the speaker, an engineer from out of state, referred to the audience as "gentlemen" several times. It never crossed his mind that we weren't all men, I guess.