Today’s ASEE First Bell reported on the joint project of WGBH and NAE to produce a website that changes the image of engineering careers to that of being an exciting and fulfilling career for women. Recent research has shown that women students in engineering are graduating with an engineering degree at about the same rate as men. The problem is that women have not been entering the freshman classes and there are few transfers into engineering. Only about 20% of the new freshmen in engineering are women. With a shortage of engineers expected in the workforce, attracting high school girls to engineering college has been an issue of high prioirty in engineering education.
A 21st century image of engineering colleges and engineering careers is needed that is inclusive of women and minorities. Many engineering companies have been inclusive for a number of years and have complained about the lack of women and minority engineering graduates. The problem as currently identified is that K12 students were not seeing engineering as an attractive career. For girls, this included a lack of role models for engineering. With the new WGBH and NAE supported website for high school girls, Engineer Your Life (http://www.engineeryourlife.org/) the image of engineering that is inclusive of successful women engineers is more evident than ever. In addition, the website for middle-school girls includes profiles of successful women engineers. (http://www.engineergirl.org)
Encourage your daughters, nieces and friends to look at these websites.
Cindy