I am happy to be tackling once again the subject of getting girls into the STEM majors, this time in honor of Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.
To better understand the problem about why so few women are going in engineering, Intel conducted a study among 1,004 teens to determine their perception of engineering. The study was “designed to determine teens’ perceptions of engineering as well as motivations and barriers for pursuing or not pursuing a career in engineering.” What they found is that lack of familiarity with the field was the main obstacle.
These were some the statistics they got:
Intel Study: Interest in engineering pre-messaging. Image used with permission.
Intel Study: Reasons to reconsider engineering. Image used with permission.
Intel Study: Post-Messaging Interest Percentage. Image used with permission.
Since you’ve already heard my point of view about Computer Science again and again and again and again, I thought we could celebrate this day with a few words from other people for a change! Following on the train of thought of the Intel study, I was curious to compare among different women in engineering how they were introduced to the field and what they do to pay it forward. I was lucky enough to round up a fantastic and impressive group of women: Wendy Hawkins, the executive director of the Intel Foundation, Erin Wakefield, a senior component design engineer and engineering manager at Intel, and Erin Stropus, a senior systems test engineer and former classmate of mine.
