Women-friendly engineering program

[KnottedYet]

I've got a relative who just retired from civil engineering. She was one of the first women (and often the only woman) in a lot of the projects she did.

She went to Michigan Tech for her undergrad, and then to Oklahoma for graduate work.

I'm sure things have changed a lot in the decades since she went to school, but she never said anything negative about her undergrad and grad education.

Sometimes her work environment could be a problem with the male engineers and male construction crews, but she never took any BS. And it helped that she was taller than most of the men!

[owlice]

You might ask over on the College Confidential forums. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/

I'd start with the Parents forum there, but also look at the Engineering major forum. Good luck to her, wherever she goes and whatever she majors in!

[zoom-zoom]

You might ask over on the College Confidential forums. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/

I'd start with the Parents forum there, but also look at the Engineering major forum. Good luck to her, wherever she goes and whatever she majors in!

I think a friend of mine is a moderator on the Parents' forum. She has long raved about CC and it really helped her help her son through choosing a school and his struggles with severe depression issues the first year. It seems like a great place to get some very specific recommendations from parents of students.

[Skierchickie]

I went to Michigan Tech (Michigan Technological University) in the late 1980s. Work there now, but in a non-academic department. Definitely an engineering school. I don't know what the ratio is these days (back then I was one of 1 or 2 women in some of my upper-level Mechanical Engineering classes). I think maybe its 20 - 25% college-wide now? That's just a guess. Engineering just doesn't attract women, so recruiting and retaining is difficult, if girls aren't headed down that path to begin with. It's a small state school - around 6500-7000 students - and very rural. The school about doubles the population of Houghton, and Hancock (across the canal) is about the same or slightly smaller. I loved it - I couldn't have handled Purdue or U of M. Too big. I was a farm kid.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about the recruiting and retention of women. I think wherever she goes those are basically male-dominated fields. If it's what she wants, she'll do fine. She'll stay if she's serious about her studies, and remains interested in it. 25 years ago, I never felt like I didn't belong, or like I wasn't accepted. Maybe some schools are different, but I doubt if things have gotten worse over time.

I think the fault lies in generations of our society acting as if women just aren't capable of understanding science & engineering, and not expecting much of them in math & science growing up. By the time girls are ready for college, the die has been cast.

I guess what I'm saying is that she should find a school that has a good reputation in the field she is interested in, that has a size and environment (and distance from home) that appeals to her. She'll be fine! She doesn't need to "thrive on adversity", because there isn't necessarily any adversity involved. She's going into a field where she will always be outnumbered by men, so she may as well get used to it and be okay with it.

[Grits]

My son just attended a camp in biological engineering at NC State. That particular engineering major there has a high percentage of female students. Don't know about the rest.

[Sylvia]

I'm a Software engineer working in California . There are definitely more men in this industry than women. If you work in the development side (engineers who write the code for the product) it would not be unusual to work in a group that is 80 percent male. However, the QA side (the engineers who test the products) can often have a larger number of women.

As was previously recommended, I'd suggest getting in contact with the Society of Women engineers. Maybe even see if some of the schools she is interested in have a local section.

http://societyofwomenengineers.swe.o...232&Itemid=329

If she really isn't sure what she wants to do yet, perhaps she can take a few classes as part of her general ed requirements and see how well she enjoys it.