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How To Increase the Number of Female Engineers
HughPickens.com writes: Lina Nilsson writes in an op-ed piece in the NY Times that she looks with despair at estimates that only about 14 percent of engineers in the work force are women. But there may be a solution to the disparity that is much simpler than targeted recruitment efforts. "An experience here at the University of California, Berkeley, where I teach, suggests that if the content of the work itself is made more societally meaningful, women will enroll in droves," writes Nilsson. "That applies not only to computer engineering but also to more traditional, equally male-dominated fields like mechanical and chemical engineering." Nilsson says that Blum Center for Developing Economies recently began a new program that, without any targeted outreach, achieved 50 percent female enrollment in just one academic year. In the fall of 2014, UC Berkeley began offering a new Ph.D. minor in development engineering for students doing thesis work on solutions for low-income communities. They are designing affordable solutions for clean drinking water, inventing medical diagnostic equipment for neglected tropical diseases and enabling local manufacturing in poor and remote regions.
According to Nilsson, women seem to be drawn to engineering projects that attempt to achieve societal good. She notes that MIT, the University of Minnesota, Penn State, Santa Clara University, Arizona State, and the University of Michigan have programs aimed at reducing global poverty and inequality that have achieved similar results. For example, at Princeton, the student chapter of Engineers Without Borders has an executive board that is nearly 70 percent female, reflecting the overall club composition. "It shows that the key to increasing the number of female engineers may not just be mentorship programs or child care centers, although those are important," concludes Nilsson. "It may be about reframing the goals of engineering research and curriculums to be more relevant to societal needs. It is not just about gender equity — it is about doing better engineering for us all."
According to Nilsson, women seem to be drawn to engineering projects that attempt to achieve societal good. She notes that MIT, the University of Minnesota, Penn State, Santa Clara University, Arizona State, and the University of Michigan have programs aimed at reducing global poverty and inequality that have achieved similar results. For example, at Princeton, the student chapter of Engineers Without Borders has an executive board that is nearly 70 percent female, reflecting the overall club composition. "It shows that the key to increasing the number of female engineers may not just be mentorship programs or child care centers, although those are important," concludes Nilsson. "It may be about reframing the goals of engineering research and curriculums to be more relevant to societal needs. It is not just about gender equity — it is about doing better engineering for us all."
Fine. So long as you're happy with being paid less for your work.
Well-paid or fulfilling - pick one. It's the same deal for both genders.
Because the US has some insane fascination with everyone being equal, no matter their own personal interests.
So, are you claiming that universities shouldn't do courses which cater to different interests?
Because that's what this is about: changing the emphasis of the course means that people interested in the new emphasis will enrole because they find it interesting.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I entirely believe you can fill one "relevant" course with 50% women, what does that prove ?
It proves there is some demand, not that there is a horde of women desperate to learn how to drill wells in the 3rd world. ...maybe there is, but there is no evidence for it.
I'm a science grad, I like this "evidence" thing.
There are a good number of people studying the Klingon language, yet I rather suspect that if every university offered such a course the places would not be filled.
This is the same logic, "I've got a course that we get people to take, therefore it can scale"
Of course I don't *know* that the demand for Klingon is relatively small, *because I require evidence* before I know anything.
The whole idea of relevance strikes me as deeply patronising, the idea that women shouldn't concern themselves with men's issues, like money and innovation, but should be some sort of carer, either wiping things up if from a poor parental background or doing a PhD in caring for 3rd worlders if she has richer parents.
Dominic Connor,Quant Headhunter
I see a lot of negative comments about the op-ed. I really don't get it though. A lot of posters complain that it's wrong to alter the curriculum so you can attract more female students, that it's all liberal or/and feminine hogwash.
Most universities tweak their curriculum so they are up to date and attract more students that way. So what is so wrong with making a curriculum more attractive to women? We are not talking about excluding males here, but if you feel that way maybe your ego is a bit fragile.
The whole op-ed it can be summarized in one question:
Do male engineers want to work with more female engineers? If yes, make the curriculum more attractive to women. You don't even need to change the curriculum, you only need to change the description so it shows what good engineering can do for society. It most instances, it's how you describe something that makes a sale.
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
Just to chime in with fun theory feminists and masculinists often forget about when they start sperging about muh gender online: The mean IQ scores between men and women vary little. The variability of male scores is greater than that of females, however, resulting in more males than females in the top and bottom of the IQ distribution. What this means that yes, in absolute numbers, there are more males with above average IQ, but also higher amount of dullards, with women sticking closer to the center of the bell curve.
My personal pet theory is that back in the day, this didnt matter that much as computers were too much of a niche. When this niche became a mainstream subject though, this distribution (in absolute numbers) started to show. Overgeneralized pet theory: intelligent people flock towards computers, others to sports and other endeavors. In absolute numbers, theres more males of smae iq than females.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2F00...
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126%2Fsc...
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017%2Fs1...
I don't see why you have to change the content of courses. You can't really. There is no "women's calculus." They're talking about a program of guided study towards a particular goal. That is, a different collection of courses and independent study, not different content for the same courses.
My brother-in-law got a building construction degree. However, he did so as part of a "green construction" program at the university. In addition to the courses on calculating loads on walls and tensile strength of materials and all that, he also had courses on ecology and environmental law, so he could better understand the context of the problems "green construction" is trying to solve and the legal frameworks in which you'd have to work.
I imagine a "socially-conscious engineering program" would be similar. You still have to take the standard civil engineering classes to learn how to build a new water pipeline or desalinization plant to solve California's water problems, but perhaps law classes on water usage rights would be helpful. Or sociology classes to help you deal with how to communicate with the public that your new clean fusion reactor is not really one of satan's demons in a box that's going to give you canceraids.
Sounds good to me.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Not to mention special ops, infantry combat, mining and ditch digging. These professions are all mostly male. I guess we'd better go figure out how to get more women there too.
Equality doesn't mean you just get to do the nice, clean, fun stuff. It means you do *all* the stuff.
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