Where are all the women?

DE Staff Reporter
Daily Egyptian

The College of Engineering sponsored a 2 1/2-day program last week for women who may be interested in entering into the engineering field. Since the early 1980s, women from all over the state have traveled to Carbondale to participate in a program that is designed to bring more women into the engineering field and promote awareness of the exceptional programs offered at SIUC.

Can that really be accomplished in two days? Can women who have never had thoughts of being an engineer make a life-affecting decision in such a short period of time?

According to Associate Dean Hasan Sevim, approximately 10 percent to 15 percent of the women who have participated in the program have attended SIUC to obtain their degree.

Make no mistake, it's a great thing that SIUC offers such a program for women to get a chance to get hands-on experience and a chance to see if engineering is a field they want to enter.

What the college of engineering is doing is good, but what about the women who are accepted for the program. Through the application process, those selected are seen as the ones who will be most successful in the field.

How can a high school transcript, letter from a counselor and ACT score determine who will be able to make it in the field. There may be some women who are exceptional students, but because of the school they attended, may not have all of the advantages to shine as their counterparts from schools that are more economically stable.

That is why, while SIUC is offering the program, it still is not enough. Having more women in engineering begins in junior high and high school.

Just like anything else that shapes a mind, it all starts when they are young. If gender roles were eliminated in teaching styles and women were encouraged to believe they, too, could be engineers, maybe there would be a higher number of women in the college.

Last fall, out of 1,017 students in the college of engineering -which includes technology - there were 107 women.

One ray of hope is the fact that the retention rate for women is higher than that of men.

But does that really mean anything when the number of men is 10 times higher than women in the first place?

Unfortunately, when all of the layers are peeled and the issue is stripped down, the fact that women are not represented in engineering as strongly as men are is a shame, and something needs to be done fast.

Teaching young girls that there is no such thing as a man's job is the first step to eliminating the insecurities about not being smart enough to enter certain fields.

It is important to make sure young girls are introduced to such fields so they can, throughout their educational career, have a goal to work toward.

Once they get to college, it is up to the university to make sure they stay and have the same opportunities in the job market as men.

Let's not continue to wait until girls are in their final year of high school to tell them they could possibly be engineers.

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