engineering for females

twoinanddone
Sun, 16 Jun 2019 01:53:33 +0000

For years the answers to those questions have been the same for nearly everyone, something along the lines of “I have an affinity for math and would like to creatively apply it in my career. Engineering, applied math and physics, would allow me to do that.”

My daughter would have said “Because I never ever ever want to take another English or history class and I heard engineers don’t have to.” Of course she was wrong and they do have to take a few more, but only a few. She picked a STEM school and not a lot of electives were offered. Her final semester she took 4 engineering classes, Spanish and tennis. To her that was a well rounded education.

I didn’t even know that her high school had an engineering program until the day she graduated. She transferred to this school so wasn’t eligible (had to start as a freshman) but one of her friends had a medal on at graduation and I asked what it was for and she said the engineering magnet program. I then looked it up (I’m always a day late!) and she and others had taken a few classes over the years for this magnet program, like a science class in environmental science. This kid would NEVER be an engineer. She hadn’t taken the most advanced math or science classes, wasn’t in robotics or any science clubs, and wasn’t even a top student. She did go to college but it wasn’t in engineering.