Female engineers!

[Anonymous]

Looking for input from female engineers about their college experience. My rising Junior is an aspiring engineer looking for a place that is collaborative, preferable not too big, and supportive of women in STEM. Any thoughts or advice? TIA.

[Anonymous]

You might want to ask recent grads. I was an engineering graduate in the mid 80s. I hope to god it's changed since then, because the misogynism ran deep. Especially in the "hard core" disciplines.

I'm now in the defense industry. Apparently a glutton for punishment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You might want to ask recent grads. I was an engineering graduate in the mid 80s. I hope to god it's changed since then, because the misogynism ran deep. Especially in the "hard core" disciplines.

I'm now in the defense industry. Apparently a glutton for punishment.

Thank you. May I ask where you attended school - hopefully things have improved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You might want to ask recent grads. I was an engineering graduate in the mid 80s. I hope to god it's changed since then, because the misogynism ran deep. Especially in the "hard core" disciplines.

I'm now in the defense industry. Apparently a glutton for punishment.

Thank you. May I ask where you attended school - hopefully things have improved.

Penn State

[Anonymous]

My niece is a grad student in engineering at Penn State and she really likes it. Her adviser is a woman. I would also recommend looking at Smith's engineering program. All women! Several of the faculty have Princeton engineering connections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking for input from female engineers about their college experience. My rising Junior is an aspiring engineer looking for a place that is collaborative, preferable not too big, and supportive of women in STEM. Any thoughts or advice? TIA.

Purdue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking for input from female engineers about their college experience. My rising Junior is an aspiring engineer looking for a place that is collaborative, preferable not too big, and supportive of women in STEM. Any thoughts or advice? TIA.

Purdue.

The Dean is a woman. It is big, but most engineering schools are (Rose Hulman, RPI and Harvey Mudd are the exceptions).

[Anonymous]

UMD engineering, graduated in 2006. They are fairly supportive of women, have women in engineering clubs and mentoring opportunities. Lots of female professors in my department. Not to say that it was all smooth sailing But I didn't have any major issues.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all! Any advice on how to navigate a big school like Penn State? Does the size make a difference (good or bad)? We are definitely checking out Smith. Any Smith engineering grads out there?

[Anonymous]

Harvey Mudd - it's making a big push to improve the gender balance in tech

https://qz.com/730290/harvey-mudd-college-took-on-gender-bias-and-now-more-than-half-its-computer-science-majors-are-women/

[Anonymous]

^^^ this article also references the "BRAID (Building, Recruiting and Inclusion for Diversity) Initiative", a bunch of colleges working to increase women in tech. Other schools that participate might be worth looking at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You might want to ask recent grads. I was an engineering graduate in the mid 80s. I hope to god it's changed since then, because the misogynism ran deep. Especially in the "hard core" disciplines.

I'm now in the defense industry. Apparently a glutton for punishment.

you are in the defense industry because you instinctively know as a woman that defense industries WILL promote women to leadership more often than silicon valley.

Lockheed an gendym have women ceos. that's 2 out of the top 4.

msft, google, and apple are 3 out of the top 5 tech firms - they will not have women ceo's anytime soon.

[Anonymous]

Dartmouth - very supportive of female engineers.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for suggestion of Harvey Mudd. I understand that it is highly competitive, but may be worth the shot! My DD is a high stats kid at a competitive magnet school. But, admit rates that are <10% is intimidating. We've looked at rankings of course, but they certainly don't tell you the whole picture. Specifically for undergraduate, she prefers a school that will pay attention to the undergrads and hopefully not just be a number or an afterthought after the grad students. Harvey Mudd's size would be ideal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You might want to ask recent grads. I was an engineering graduate in the mid 80s. I hope to god it's changed since then, because the misogynism ran deep. Especially in the "hard core" disciplines.

I'm now in the defense industry. Apparently a glutton for punishment.

Thank you. May I ask where you attended school - hopefully things have improved.

Penn State

Ditto for U of Md college park.
The other students were ironically the ones that were rampantly sexist. I enjoyed my professors and classes in undergrad. Grad school not so muc that's where it really was awful. But the working world was the worst as the men seemed to unite to put the women down and label them useless whenever they could. I wasn't even allowed to work on a project that entailed subject matter that I had graduate degrees in - in favor of guys who needed special permission to graduate with low grades (i.e.: D's and C's). I got mostly A's and I was told that I had probably received those not because I was smart and worked hard but because I had 'sat in the front row wearing a short skirt'. Yeah - no. School was a picnic compared to work.

At least now they make you do an internship - so maybe you can choose law or medicine instead.

Maybe things have improved but I'm glad my own bright daughter does not want to do STEM (also - low pay for long hours)

OP I think things have improved - I hope - but I'd recommend that your DD get a PhD if she wants to be in STEM. It will go a lot better for her.