Gender and Education

This interesting article brought to light some interesting statistics that I wouldn’t have guessed on my own.  I’m not really sure what to make of it just yet, but I’m hoping that I might at least use the information to encourage my students, especially girls that might not see themselves as capable of going into an engineering-related filed.

Part of the program I work with encourages students to choose a path as they enter their junior year: the Biomed path, or the Engineering path.  Overwhelmingly, the girls tend to prefer Biomed.  That’s not necessarily a problem (before I get flamed for insinuating otherwise) - I just want to make sure all students feel they are capable of either choice.  Last year, for instance, out of about twenty students, only two were girls.