Women engineers ban together to stay ‘on track’
Utah State University and the Society of Women Engineers helps female students stay on-track within their engineering studies to achieve their dream professions.
“SWE not only encourages women to take up engineering as a career option but also strives to retain the present students. We also participate in various girl scout activities,” said Revathi Pepalla, this past school year’s president of SWE and doctorate student studying biological engineering.
USU has half the national average of women majoring in engineering.
Associate Dean of the College of Engineering Wynn Walker said women comprise only 9 percent of the undergraduate engineering and technology enrollment.
“I don’t really know why engineering is such a male dominated profession,” Walker said. “It would be a much better one if this were not the case.”
Walker hopes the university can improve the statistics of women studying to become engineers, but doing so will involve much effort exposing elementary and secondary age children to engineering, she said.
“Engineering is a math-intensive discipline, but my experience of some 35 years leads me to think there just has to be more too it than math,” Walker said. “All I know for certain is that I could not interest a single one of our six children in engineering because they all thought it was boring.”
Walker said her children seemed to like the idea of having an engineer’s income and the lifestyle but “not enough to do it themselves.”
“I am very passionate about being an engineer,” Pepalla said. “It requires you to be highly analytical. We are required to conceptualize a design, analyze how it should work and finally, bring the design concept to application of technology that is useful to society.”
SWE was founded in 1950 and is a not-for-profit educational and service organization, said the society’s national Web site. The site, www.swe.org, describes SWE as the “driving force that establishes engineering as a highly desirable career aspiration for women. SWE empowers women to succeed and advance in those aspirations and be recognized for their life-changing contributions and achievements as engineers and leaders.”
USU’s SWE chapter Web site at www.engineering.usu.edu/clubs/swe/ said the group is committed to “encouraging women engineers to attain high levels of educational and professional achievement.” The chapter “serves center of information for women in engineering and promotes the value of diversity.”
This year the chapter is sponsored by USU’s College of Engineering, Space Dynamics Lab and Water Research Lab. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Varian Medical Systems, CH2M Hill, Microsoft, Campbell Scientific, ZZ Consulting and STM Associates are also sponsors.
SWE has helped inspire Pepalla to continue her education after her Master’s degree. She said she always wondered if she could really contribute to the field. “Meeting and observing many amazing women out there only increased my resolve.”
Pepalla said all the activities the society participates in are to build bonds between the female students, improve their networks and to create support. Panel discussions with professional women in engineering about balancing work and life were organized. Even Yoga workshops were held to help students reduce their stresses.
“We have great support from USU Engineering dean’s office,” Pepalla said. Every year 10 to 15 girls are sent to SWE regional and national conferences with the use of their sponsorship money.
Chris Hailey, associate dean of the College of Engineering, said she hopes SWE will increase the number of female students studying engineering.
“I do not have hard data to support that fact. But I do have a good sense of what it means to be a female engineer and what value SWE adds to my life,” she said.
Hailey has worked as a faculty member at USU and as an engineer for 20 years.
“Needless to say, I have never had many female colleagues, “she said.
Like her, Hailey said, female students on campus ask the same sort of question. Membership in the USU SWE student chapter helps female students answer that question while having an opportunity to meet other junior, senior or graduate female engineering students. SWE involvement is a community that will help women stay on-track with their education and career paths.
“Through my SWE membership I have met many dynamic, brilliant, successful female engineers,” she said. “They are my role models and my mentors.”
On a personal level, Hailey’s involvement with SWE is one reason why she has “succeeded in a male-dominated profession,” she said.
Pepalla said as a women engineer moves up the ladder in the profession, there is a constant need for them to prove that they’re better or equal to their male counterparts.
“A woman has more of an ability to be a leader without really acting like one. They have the unique ability to be compassionate and empathetic, which makes them unique and different from men,” she said.
Byard Wood is the department head for mechanical and aerospace engineering. He said the department definitely wants more women.
Wood said current efforts to recruit new students into the MAE department use “traditional” appeals that reinforce in students the preconception that mechanical engineers just build cars and aircrafts. While this is effective with male students, he said it seems to have a lesser appeal less female students. Even though mechanical engineering is a much broader field than many people realize, he said.
A four-day program called Engineering State takes place each year on the USU campus to introduce the broad field. About 250 high school students attend the event on-campus to introduce them to opportunities available in the engineering fields and degree programs available at USU. The program traditionally encourages women and underrepresented ethnic groups in engineering.
-doantn@cc.usu.edu
Percentage of Women enrolled various engineering programs at USU
Biological engineering 20
Civil engineering 9
Computer and electrical engineering 6
Environmental engineering 48
Mechanical engineering 7
Industrial technology program 10