Improving Female Retention Rates Of Engineering Students

Over the past 50 years, women in the United States have made great strides in education an entry into the work force in this country. However, despite these advances, women continue to be underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math, collectively referred to as “STEM.” Women’s representation is low at all levels of the STEM career “pipeline,” from interest and intent to majoring in a STEM field in college and to having a career in a STEM field in adulthood. Studies show that girls lose interest in math and science during middle school, and STEM interest for girls is low, compared to boys. Most research on this topic has focused on representation of girls and women in these fields, primarily on the obstacles preventing more girls and women from entering them. It is time now to shift the focus toward understanding and developing solutions for “what works” for girls who show interest and engage in the fields of STEM.

Additionally, as a female engineer, I am in the minority in the workplace and affected by the patriarchal system. Only 15% of women hold positions in male-dominated fields such as engineering

As time has passed, the number of working women engineers has increased from 730 women engineers at work in 1949 to 3,600 in 1950.  Although this is a great increase of women entering the computer science field, the lack of women in the science and engineering field is still a real controversy.  There has been a miniscule amount of women in STEM careers, occupations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, due to the masculine portrayal of the engineering and science, the lack of role models to help encourage college students and upcoming women engineers, and the obstacles that women in the science field face at work and at home.

Although the recent upward trends in the number of women in STEM fields are promising, they are not truly due to decreasing cultural stereotypes. Women receiving graduate degrees in engineering increased by 2 percent from 2000 to 2008, but this trend is not as hopeful as it may seem (Giges). This increase was mainly evident in communal fields like environmental or biomedical engineering (Giges). This is further evidence of the impact of cultural stereotypes and their influence on women’s career paths. Society’s expectation of women is that they serve as caring motherly figures and community-centered careers adhere

With this number constantly increasing, the need for engineers increases simultaneously. It is my plan to design and build sustainable buildings and homes for this growing population. I am a high achiever who dreams to provide structural integrity to those in need. The excellent engineering program will be used to extend my knowledge to others. In 2016, the numbers for female engineers are increasing, but at a very plodding pace. As a young, black female, I want to help make it more comfortable and accepting for females after me to enter this field.

Before women to get more involved in the STEM fields women first have to go and get degrees in STEM undergraduate programs. One way to help change this is the lack of female role models. Girls need role models to show that they can be successful in STEM fields. If there are such strong gender stereotypes it might be discouraging women from pursuing STEM education and STEM jobs. It is complicated to get young women role models because the people who are part of the hiring team said that were less likely to say they would hire the female applicants overall and that they would offered them lower salaries and fewer mentoring opportunities. This is a problem because women will be less likely to want to get into these fields because they will have to work so much harder to get the same recognition as the males. Young girls will be more interested in getting into one of these fields where they fear comfortable. Young girls need a role model like Emily Roebling who studied math and science and became the chief engineer in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1860. Another reason that girls are less likely to pursue these majors is gender stereotyping, and less family-friendly flexibility in the STEM fields. Across all STEM fields, female PhDs have lower rates of patenting and entrepreneurship than do male PhDs. This difference is most pronounced in physics, astronomy and the computer sciences, in which women earned only 1 in 5 PhDs. There is a need to encourage and support women in

In his article, “Does Gender Matter?”, Ben A. Barres writes about the apparent absence of women in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields. He starts out the article by informing the reader about a few of the hypotheses that aim to explain this difference in presence, hypotheses that Barres aims to disprove. Barres explains, and at a few points depicts with charts and graphs, the significance of the gap between the amount of white men in the STEM majors and fields of studies and the amount of women and minorities in these same areas. He tell the readers the misconceptions such as the idea that women are inferior in these fields are untrue, and the fact is that woman and minorities are discouraged from entering into these areas

In the career of engineer men are more likely to major in that career when attending college but the fact that a woman wants to major in the engineer career does not make her different from men. With this being said just the fact that gender is involved in the engineer career should be changed because women want to also be a part since women enjoy it for themselves. Common misconceptions that women face when majoring in engineering are that womens are not smart or do not know how to do math. According to the NC State News, an online article First -Year Class Boasts Highest Percentage of Female Engineers, Mick Kulikowski includes statistics by

The fear of getting very technical or involved in a field that is male dominated is a major obstacle and is a reflection of the number of women in technical fields. Most women my age believe in the notion of leaving the hard and dirty work to the men. I wish girls didn’t have to be afraid

Actually, today’s engineering profession takes gender diversity in college very seriously. In early 1970, Georgia Tech and Caltech both had zero female undergraduates, but “in 2011, Georgia Tech led the nation in granting engineering bachelor’s degrees to women, and in Caltech, women comprised around 40 percent of undergraduate enrollment.” Amy Bix, who is the author of “Girls Coming to Tech!: A History of American Engineering Education for Women”, tries to from a historical perspective, provide evidence that higher education has already started to open their arms to women. It’s not only the higher education institutions that are promoting systematic support for female engineering students, such as learning-community programs and extracurricular support. Some industry leaders also started trying to find ways to inspire girls to notice the beauty of tech at a young age. Bill Gates and Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg back the nonprofit coding education site Code.org to encourage and teach more American children – especially girls – to learn Computer Science. Even Victoria Secret Supermodel Karlie Kloss has joined the growing list of encouraging young women to take up computer coding. By calling them to apply for “Kode with Karlie Scholarship,” she explained the reason specifically for the girls, about why she offers this precious opportunity, “I think it’s crucial that young women learn to code as early as possible to

This literature review focuses on the available literature about the barriers for women going into engineering leading to the underrepresentation of women in engineering. “Only 8% of British engineers are women, the lowest proportion in Europe, and well behind Germany (15%), Sweden (25%) and top-performing Latvia (30%)” (Rankin, 2014). Over the last few years, women in engineering has become a major research topic, though a large majority of the research available focuses on STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics) as a whole. This review will mainly be focusing on the barriers of beliefs about intelligence and cognitive abilities, self-assessment, and discrimination by stereotyping.

areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics employers are not getting enough women (Pozniak). High school girls only represent 17 percent of computer science Advance Placement (AP) test takers (O'Shea). The most significant group of minorities who are behind in earning computer technology degrees and working in science and mathematical professions are women. “Historically, women’s low representation in science and engineering was said to be due in large part of their lack of ability, interest, or both” (Horning 30). However, this is no longer a true fact according to Ward. Some suggestions to increasing the amount of women in sciences include introducing already present women faculty as mentors. Over the last three decades,

Through thorough research and survey analysis we were able to conclude that there tends to be a higher population of male students pursuing Engineering and Business majors compared to all other college majors. Not only is this true at North Carolina State University, but we also found this true for other universities in the US as well. Out of 51 males who completed our survey, roughly 22 percent informed us they were enrolled in some form of Business major, whereas only 8 percent of the females surveyed were enrolled in a business major. Not only were there a higher percentage of males pursuing Business majors, but there were also a higher percentage of males seeking an Engineering degree. Out of 51 males surveyed 25 percent expressed they were currently enrolled in hopes of seeking an Engineering degree, while only 2 percent of all females surveyed were

The Experiences and Imagery of Women in Engineering. Carolyn Jagacinski conducted a survey to compare the background and career characteristics of men and women in

Women have the qualities that are needed to become good engineers. The only way that women are different from men in the field is in the training. Women have all the capability to become good engineers as men if they can receive the proper/same training, employment and promotion as men. In receiving training women make up a extremely small amount of the student population in science related majors. Only 53% of the total students in Scotland universities are women. However bellow 19% are studying engineering, computer studies, and physicals sciences. Likewise, University students in Germany were only 48% women. Of the 48% of women only 20% of the engineering students are women. Women are the minority in engineering and like courses. In Bulgarian they limited women to only be allowed to make up 50% of engineering students.