|
Advertisement
|
« Depressed About Gas Prices? Consider the Moped. (Everyone Else Seems To Be.) | Main | Light Friday: 007's Bulldozer, Rice Krispies Rocket Science, Mac Engineering Flashback... »
April 27, 2006
Upping the Estrogen in Engineering Talent Pool
As the number of forthcoming, next-generation engineers purportedly decreases dramatically, one large demographic group and resource for closing the talent gap remains untapped: women.
For a while now, the argument has stood that we face a looming national problem of not producing enough engineers to be competitive with other technology-oriented countries such as India and China:
• The U.S. has about 300 million people, producing about 60,000 engineers annually.
• India's population is 1 billion (i.e., about 3x that of here), producing 350,000 engineers each year (i.e., 6x U.S. output of engineers).
• China's population is 1.4 billion (i.e., about 4x that the U.S.), graduating 600,000 engineers a year. That's 10 times that of the U.S.!
Belle Wei, dean of the college of engineering at San Jose State University, recently published an interesting and spot-on article in the San Jose Mercury News.
Wei notes that one large demographic group and resource for closing the talent gap remains untapped: women.
"There's a widespread societal presumption that women have made tremendous inroads into the engineering and computing ranks starting back in the 1970s," she writes.
The fact is that women's participation rate has stagnated at a level of less than 20 percent. Most alarming is the steep decline in the number of women pursuing their education in computing. In the early 1980s, the percentage of female freshman students who majored in computer science or engineering peaked at approximately 4.25 percent of all incoming undergraduates. As of 2003, the percentage has dropped to 0.5 percent. This is the same level as it was in 1971 and 1972!
The dean of engineering posits that if women aren't attracted to engineering enough to "come to us, then we need to start going to them." Therefore, engineering programs must be developed and presented in a way that appeals to them.
Not at all a bad idea. In fact, it is a fantastic one.
However, things must change if we are to tap into this massive resource of potentially great engineers. The approach must change. "Technology for technology's sake" does not work for this demographic. But a Carnegie Mellon study shows that, in general, "female students are encouraged and attracted to computing when it's taught in a social context — with an end application that is meaningful to them." Consider such applications as the arts, education, environmental issues, generally helping others.
This approach has wider-use application, though. To bring in the next generation of engineers of both genders, technology must be presented as a tool to address real-world issues, "which encompass productivity improvement, infrastructure development, environmental protection and/or quality-of-life enhancement."
We want to fill up the largely empty technical talent pool. Yet we ignore half our population in this determined effort?
Source
Need more engineers? Recruit women
by Belle Wei
The San Jose Mercury News, April 27, 2006
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://news.thomasnet.com/mt41/mt-tb.cgi/526
|
Advertisement
|
Comment
24 CommentsMaybe the low number of engineering students reflects the ongoing willingness of business to offshore engineering and lay off the engineers who then have to change jobs and/or start over again. Wonder why the lads today study law and medicine? Simple: we don't offshore these jobs (yet).
May 16, 2006 1:39 PMAlthough women are definitely equal to men mentally, they often lack the spacial abilities necessary for engineering work. As long as it's a woman with the talent needed to do the job, the product should be equal to anything a man produces. However, I'm a firm believer in equal pay for equal work, but there should also be equal treatment. Most women do NOT belong in a male-dominated field because they lack the emotional stability to handle the everyday stresses and treatment as "one of the guys." They want equal pay, but when treated the same as a man, the man ends up having to go to sensitivity training. If she has the talent and is NOT a crybaby, hire her. Otherwise, put her in a female-dominated clerical pool or something.
May 16, 2006 1:40 PMI'm a female BSME '97 graduate working in the Oil and Gas Industry. Even though my fellow coworkers respect my quality engineering skills, the upper management remains skeptical. However, I strongly believe this change will occur at a pace not unlike computers in this industry.
Thank you for the topic on a subject that needs to be openly shared. I look forward to an engineering environment that is blind to both gender and race, but acutely aware of work quality.
May 16, 2006 1:52 PMI have been a female in a male-dominated field for the past 30 years. I started as an electrician's helper because someone gave me a chance, and he desprately needed help for 1 day. I have done house wiring, commercial wiring and eventually was hired by a major oil company to do industrial electrical work. I completed the company's three-year apprentice course and worked as a field electrician for 14 and a half years.
During this time I also went to night school and earned an associate's degree in Design Drafting.
For the past eleven years, I have been with an engineering company that contracts with the oil company that I formerly worked. I do control systems design work in an all-male work group and have never had any problems keeping up with what is expected of me, nor have I had any problems of any type with the men that I work with.
The only discouragement that I was ever thrown was from a college counselor, a male, who told me that I didn't need to pursue an engineering degree. This was his statement with no testing or no clue to support his judgement.
Still, I sometimes think back and wonder what a different life I might have led if that one person had decided that I didn't deserve a chance to help out because I was a female.
May 16, 2006 2:33 PMThe above comment by Bill Rose is directly on the money (nice job Bill). I can't believe that the authors of these articles (Bell Wie and many others) can really be so naive about the topic that they are actually writing about especially since she is the Dean of Engineering. Just look around at the universities in this country. Many professor, TA's and other high level positions in academia are dominated by foreigner's here on what might as well be permanent Visa's.
The question to ask is WHY???
Why would women want to get into engineering or technical areas that are being irradicated by corporations and government officials who are all on the fast track to causing the extinction of technically knowledgeable people here in the U.S of A, all due to the madness of raising profits while taking record bonuses at the same time that these CEO's are laying off thousands of workers who have technical skills.
The younger generation who are going through college now and those right behind them for a generation to come see no profit/money in fields like engineering and that is why the enrollments are down. They see no profit in this field because of corporations like Walmart who cheapen society and force manufacturers to move technical jobs to China and India in order to be "competitive" and our politicians are right there behind them while they sell us out.
I have been working for manufacturing companies and now run an engineering firm and for the last 16+ years, I have seen the numbers dwindle and candidates for positions are less and less "qualified" or motivated for that matter as the younger generation wants instant gratification, high paying jobs without having to work their way up the ladder (see the Good Morning America website for a post run this morning 05/16/06) on this very topic).
There are some major problems with this country and we all contribute to them by fueling ignorance and apathy toward foreign competition. China and India offer some of the lowest wages in the world, China devalues it's own currency by an estimated 40% which is most likely a conservative estimate while they fail miserably on the human rights front. U.S. Corporations cannot compete without having to go offshore to tap cheap labor in developing countries because those countries have no standards to live and work by where workers are abused, paid pennies a day, work 16-18 hour shifts and have no facilities like healthcare or OSHA to cover their collective backsides.
I am appalled at how ignorant and apathetic most people are to these facts and I can guarantee you that it will only get worse before it has a chance of getting better.
My company recently lost a contract with a good client because their China resource offered to do the engineering for "FREE". Of course these people are ignorant as well since the cost of the services is not Free but built into the cost of the parts. Doing the simple math, if the project was going to cost $50k to engineer and develop the product the China resource builds in a penny here and a dime there over the many parts in these products and all they need to do is build in a total of $1 to each unit. The company is going to buy 50k units this year alone which means that the China resource just made up their engineering costs. Now what happens over the next 5-10 years of that products life. You guessed it, the company is paying that same $50k each year that has been built into the cost of the parts totalling up to $500k over the product life.
Now you make the call!!! Why would women, or anyone for that matter, want to go into an industry like this???
Respectfully submitted by a knowledgeable technical professional who sees this interaction every day from just about ALL corporations that sell to retailers like Walmart and Home Depot,
Bruce
May 16, 2006 2:33 PMAnother factor leading to the low number of engineering graduates (men and women) is that more than half of all students entering engineering colleges either drop out or are forced out before completing their programs. These are students who hoped and dreamed of becoming engineers, but whose dreams were crushed.
Sometimes it is lack of ability or lack of money, but often it is abusive professors and courses. Engineering schools seem to be filled with these tenured little gods of academia who believe it is their responsibility to "weed out" the unworthy. Their required courses have little or no real-world application; they exist simply to cull the herd. The number of students applying to engineering programs (and this may be especially true of women) would rise dramatically if it were not such a hostile educational environment.
May 16, 2006 2:42 PMI have been in this business for over 25 years, am a female engineer and also act as a mentor for students at a local regional high school.
I have found one of the biggest road blocks to be guidance counselors in our high schools who do their best to steer girls away from anything to do with engineering. As a result, they do not take the math and science classes they need for technical fields. It is one of the reasons I work with the students, to show them that women can do this job.
Note to Clint: The word is "spatial," and you are definitely out there. Your attitude may be why there are so few women in engineering. That sensitivity training sounds like something you really need.
I'd have to agree with Mark. Except for me CSU, Chico class of '89 the drop-out rate was approximately 75%, not 50%. These are people who WANTED to become engineers, but due to study habits, partying, just not being prepared for the huge workload or not being smart enough, or whatever, they didn't make it through.
So now we are going to try and convince people who aren't sure if they even want to do this, to just give it a try, cause engineering is fun? That's going to make for some VERY unhappy students. You have GOT to want this degree more than you've wanted anything in your whole life, or you're never going to make it. Heck, I almost gave up a couple of times myself.
May 16, 2006 4:54 PMWhat does a person's sex have to do with engineering? Why would you want to place a female in a field they want nothing to do with and one that's being phased out in America? (It's being outsourced, have you not noticed?) Maybe it's to make it easier for them to find dating material. They could meet all those lonely male engineers that are still out there trying to hang on to the job they still have while wondering if they'll be the next one to be outsourced/laid off.
May 16, 2006 8:10 PMI think that Keith has something there -- you've got to really want that professional degree and be willing to persevere to get that license. Something that helped me stay on track was my original inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright. Of course, he was already dead and no help to me, but there are others to both admire and get support from. Active participation in professional organizations helps a person network their way to opportunity. Motivation is the real key.
May 17, 2006 7:36 AMAs a female designer working with the engineers in the process plant industry, I would greatly welcome more female engineers. They are better able to multitask and time-manage than most males I've worked with. I also agree with Helen.
May 17, 2006 11:19 AMIt has been my observation over the years that good engineers can and do work with anyone who can contribute: male, female, black, white, labor, management, foreign born, native, union, non-union. Poor engineers ignore information unless it comes from someone who resembles themselves.
May 17, 2006 1:38 PM
