<p>This is a very interesting discussion. My D is headed off in the fall to study engineering. She applied to a mix of schools, predominantly A&S but only one engineering program. She made a chart and compared the curriculum for Biomedical Engineering/Biology/Chemistry at each school she was interested in; eliminated some schools because she was just not that interested in them and then decided to attend UVA because while it wasn’t the highest ranked program, it offered her what she perceived to be the best opportunities. UMich stands out as a program that actively tried to interest her in WISE but the students really couldn’t provide a lot of specifics in why she would be interested in being part of the community. Like oldfort’s D, she would have had a better chance at being admitted as an engineering student than A&S at several of the schools she applied to, but the curriculum and some of the requirements didn’t appeal to her. </p>
<p>D hasn’t had any female mentors in the sciences to date; in middle school, I think she could have gone either way- science/math or liberal arts; but she decided to go with science/math because “she likes finding answers to problems”. Hopefully she will still enjoy it after first semester concludes.</p>
<p>Actually, men are allowed to join SWE. Men are allowed to join most of the women’s sci/eng affinity groups that I’ve seen.</p>
<p>Not that a group intended to support a small minority population that still faces harassment and discrimination in the field (I could tell you some stories from people I know) is actually the same thing as a group used by the dominant population to shore up their dominance.</p>
<p>I think that the numbers for women are getting better in some fields of engineering, but they are still dismal in computer science. At my company (which does intelligent systems research and software), the science & engineering staff is something like 8% women, and almost all of us are young and junior-level.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think the key word here is “lose”. Middle school frequently does a number on girls, what with the constant sexual harassment and extreme pressure to conform to a certain definition of femininity, and I wouldn’t be surprised if girls who were interested in math/science as little kids <em>drop</em> those interests in middle school.</p>
<p>It appears that this isn’t advertised. The picture of the group of WiCS at my son’s school is all women. I didn’t see any indication that they allowed guys in the group.</p>
<p>“I think that the numbers for women are getting better in some fields of engineering, but they are still dismal in computer science. At my company (which does intelligent systems research and software), the science & engineering staff is something like 8% women, and almost all of us are young and junior-level.”</p>
<p>I’d like my daughter to do CS but I don’t think that she has the drive to get through courses like physics, circuits, foundations and algorithms. Son just plowed right through these with no problems but there’s a massive gulf between their science and math abilities. I do think that she could get through an IS program and could certainly get through a tech program. She is showing some tentative interest because she’s the best student in her programming course - she and the professor are the only females in the class and the rest of the students (19 of them) are all male.</p>
<p>I’ve encouraged her in math and science since she was quite little but she has always naturally gravitated to literature, writing and the humanities. I think that nothing builds confidence like success and she needs more of that in math and science which is where I’m pushing her for next year.</p>
<p>Peer issues were not a factor for our kids as they were both homeschooled and they had a lot of choices and freedom to study what they wanted to with some parental guidance.</p>
<p>I went to a SWE meeting when I was a new engineer, in my mid-20s. I was appalled! Most of the women were divorcees in their 40s who had gone back to school to get their engineering degrees. That’s great, but all they did was rag on guys! It was annoying.</p>
<p>But then I went to another meeting a couple of years ago, because they had an interesting speaker. This time, the members were young, enthusiastic women. There were also a couple of young men. I was very impressed with the group.</p>
<p>MTA: My dad is still a civil engineering professor. He said that about 15-20 percent of his students are women.</p>
<p>I found it to be a very flexible career. I met my husband in grad school, and 10 years ago we formed our own firm, that we run out of our house. Before that, I worked part-time for a precast concrete manufacturing company. I would go into work very early so I could get home around 3:30. I did have one contractor whine, “You must be a MOM,” when he learned that I worked only three days a week!</p>
<p>SWE offers a wonderful award, as Certificate of Merit, to juniors showing interest in math and science as identified by the HS guidance counselors. The Local section very intentionally request two nomination: one male and one female, so as not to be exclusionary.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the male nominee at D’s school has been loud in refusing “some girly” award. Would he turn down an award to IEEE? probably not. But he has no qualms about rejects the SWE award. Until that is straighened out, discrimination will rage on.</p>
<p>Note on admissions: While overall male/female at tech oriented schools (RPI, WPI, Clarkson, Missouri S&T) are more balanced between men and women, if you look at the ASEE profiles (SAT, class rank) of the engineering student verses the overall school states, one can draw a presumption that its much harder to get into an tech school as an engineering major, rather then as a business or other major and there are far fewer women engineering majors then women as a whole.</p>
<p>The above is KEY! and as far as SWE goes, men are welcome and encouraged. That said, the focus is on keeping girls interested in math and science/engineering, and keeping women going in a male dominated environment. If you did not join SWE because you thought you wanted a “level playing field” … you lost out and you didn’t see that you are NOT on a level playing field. </p>
<p>I do some outreach for SWE (been a member for 30 GAK! years). One of the frustrations I have is that the girls are still clueless about the value of the invisible network found on the golf/football/hockey fields.</p>
<p>Although it is now pretty dated I still recommend everyone, but especially girls read “Games your Mother never taught you.” I believe it applies equally to banking as engineering or any other field that is not ‘pink collar’.</p>
<p>I guess I’ve been fortunate. I graduated (long ago) with a BS in Civil Engineering from Univ of Florida. My favorite classes in middle school and HS have always been math and science. I never took to English & history as much. I don’t think my parents did anything special in encouraging me to go into engineering or a math/science-related field, other than they expected that I would go to college. (Neither graduated from college themselves.) Though I no longer work in my intended field (currently IT/web development at a software company), I know that my engineering education has served me well in my career, esp. being able to assess the “big picture” and coming up with a logical plan to solve a problem (which probably describes many engineering problems). Also, I should note that both my immediate manager and 2nd-level director are both females (and BTW, both excellent and well-respected managers).</p>
<p>Fast forward to present-day: Though both my husband and I have engineering degrees, my daughter is totally the opposite – she loves English, history and writing. Her least favorite subjects are science and math (though I personally believe that she does well in math, and I have told her this much already). She does not intend to major in anything related to math or science, but I continue to tell her to keep an open mind when she goes to college. :-)</p>
<p>Went to engineering because of love of math and physics. Spent half of my life in engineering and did not care for it. Switched to Computer Science and love it. There are always have been a lot of women in Comp. Science, remember who wrote COBOL (computer language). The best part of what I am doing now is that you do not need much solid background in any discipline, just need to have very solid common scense and burning desire to always win against computer. However, the higher degree you have, the higher GPA (neither of them are actually needed for a job), the easier it is to find a job.</p>
<p>It is NOT easier to get into MIT as a girl, the Admissions Office has gone on record as saying that. I’m not sure about anywhere else.</p>
<p>The only class that I noticed a disparity in the number of girls and boys was my intro to physics class, whic was geared towards people with little experience with physics, and which was mostly girls. It was first term freshman year, though, so it’s very possible that this is a side effect of girls doing less math and science in high school. In either case, I believe most of our engineering departments are 40-50% female, with a few exceptions.</p>
<p>Aren’t the bio-related engineering majors or fields somewhat higher in % of women? Are admissions for women any less competitive at the top undergraduate or graduate programs?</p>
<p>BCEagle91: Has your daughter considered going into human-computer interaction or human factors engineering? Those are good fields for people who are interested in doing CS/engineering-type stuff, but also like art, writing, and psychology.</p>
<p>Also, the sort of math that one does in CS is a little different than the math most students have seen pre-college, or even other basic college math. I discovered, rather to my surprise, that I found discrete math and algorithms somewhat easier than I found calculus and differential equations. Some people, of course, have the opposite experience.</p>
<p>I went through about half of AOPS with her in the past and she would do it but not enthusiastically. I have asked her if she’s interested in taking a discrete math course but she has declined (we have a lot of discrete math books at home). I think that she was scared off by the failure rates in my son’s discrete structures II course.</p>
<p>I asked her to make a list of courses that she wants to take in the fall and will review that when I get the list. My son has offered to teach her discrete but she has so far declined his offer.</p>
<p>It’s so weird that engineering in America is so disproportionate in terms of gender. I come from a country where traditional gender roles can still be a powerful force, yet my mother got a B.S. in Chemical Engineering in late 80s, and my grandmother got a B.S. in Petrolium (?) Engineering in the 50s. None of them really ended up working in their fields, but they were pretty good in math and sciences! I guess it all has to do with the availability of different options and societal perceptions…</p>