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Girls in engineering: No stats, just facts

By Daisy Daivasagaya (May 13 2011)

Stepping in University as a first year student is somewhat challenging. This feeling is exacerbated if you are a girl entering Computer Engineering, a field which, almost by definition, has a predominantly (surprise!) male student population. I still clearly remember my first class. I walked in. I found a seat. Looking around, I quickly sampled the classroom: The girl:guy ratio was 3:25. Not surprising, I thought, given all the stereotypes that depict all computer-related fields as male-oriented. All other fields always seem equally (or even more) female-oriented, especially the medical sciences.

As a disclaimer, perhaps I should add that I won’t ramble about the need to balance genders in computer-related fields. These days, everyone speaks of under-representation of women in computer science. This is a true fact, but it is important to look at interests and qualifications rather than gender.

What we need is not just more women; what we need is for more women to be aware of what computer-science fields really are about so that they can perhaps find interest in it.

If our goal is to eliminate the misconception that computer science is reserved for men, then our mission is to inform girls honestly about what computer science is and what it can offer them. 

I entered Computer Engineering because I like computers, programming and I was interested in understanding the complexities of hardware systems. Of course, I was also uncomfortable the first day of classes, even the first semester. Why? Because of all those horror stories I heard from people trying to discourage me from going in computer engineering. Yet throughout my degree, I never felt any prejudice from the part of male students.

If I had a magic wand, I would not change that 3:25 ratio. Instead, I would use that wand to let every woman on this planet know what Computer Engineering is so they can make an educated decision. The ratio of women to men may increase, stay the same or even decrease but regardless, my goal is not to do an exercise in handwaving statistics alarmingly, but to hope that more women enter or leave a field because of an informed decision, and not stereotypes

Author Bio

I am an engineering student and co-founder of Technophilic Magazine. I am really interested by new technologies, research and, of course, writing!