Study: Women Now Leaving STEM Fields to Pursue ‘Social Justice’ Degrees
“Women in engineering are more motivated by helping others, and engineering education needs to provide more examples of engineering as a helping profession,” the professors wrote.
If one accepts that the lack of women in STEM is indeed a problem – which it may well be – this latest information shows that the problem was misdiagnosed as being primarily a bias issue, and thus led to failed solutions.
We should let people pursue the career they want vs. trying to force people into careers to achieve targets for population distribution. As long as there’s not bias against a group, then things are good. Don’t spin a career into something it’s not to get people to try it. They’ll just change careers later once they learn it’s not what they want.
Uh, easy for you to say…some of us had Tiger Moms and Dads…
This is why the National Academy of Engineering has this effort going on - Changing the Conversation, because studies show the way we talk to minorities and girls about the benefits of engineering aren’t the aspects that interest them in the careers.
Money is a major factor for many engineers to choose the engineering career. I don’t know a single engineer who chose engineering career to “help people”. Those who wanted to “help people” would go to medical school and nursing school.
A qualified minority girl may choose medical school instead of engineering school due to the fact that doctors are more respected in their community and have a better financial security than engineers. She avoids engineering since engineers earn less, has a shorter career, no career path, not respected. Similarly she would avoid biotech and choose medical school without a blink.
Simply put, minority girls have better options, who cares about STEM when medical profession is much better.
The fact is that engineering is an inferior option when compared with medical profession
Yeah, I’m sure the stories about 18 hour days and bio hacking, so you can maintain that schedule make engineering sound amazing.
This is the dumbest statement I have ever read. How many engineers do you even know - I can say I know thousands of female engineers who all want to help people and males as well, it’s not just about the money, there are plenty more careers that pay more $ than engineers honestly.
Engineers don’t have short careers at all, and wtf do you mean they have no career path or aren’t respected - seems just not respected by you!? The benefit of engineering is it teaches you how to think and solve problems which is applicable across a wide variety of jobs/careers and a lot of CEOs have engineering degrees - What Are The Most Common Majors Of Fortune 500 CEOs? “People who studied engineering and business account for 44% of the fortune 500 CEOs.”
For someone who wants a life outside of work, engineering is a way better option besides being a doctor.
Software engineers in the bay area maybe work 18 hours days but most engineers in other industries/disciplines across the US do not work that many hours. I’ve been in engineering for 10+ years and never worked more than a 40 hour week and I’ve been at 3 companies in the bay area including consumer goods and biotech.
When given an option for Havard Medical school and MIT bio engineering PhD or master program, which do you choose?
I know many engineers. Some of them studied history or music before, but later changed career to be software engineer. Their motivation is better pay. If they can become a doctor as easily as an engineer, they might have chosen that over engineer.
You need to understand that monitory girls have more options than you. They might have multiple medical school admissions for them to choose. No one is dumb. They are as smart as you, they don’t need someone to steer them into stupid engineering. I’m an engineer as well but I think I would not choose this career if I have better options. I don’t remember the national academy of engineering ever enticed me to become an engineer.
Minority girls are as smart as you are. They are not objects to be manipulated by carefully crafted “messages”. It’s an insult to them.
Not everything is about pay and the message was if you looked at the site I linked that girls and minorities don’t go into professions to make a lot of money, they want to do something that contributes to helping people and engineering does do that, we just never focus on that aspect of it - the issue isn’t even choosing which school to go to, it starts way earlier in grade school as to how you encourage girls
I would choose Engineering over medical school every time, because the benefits of the profession and what you get out of them are very different, they are not equivalent, not every person who could be an amazing doctor would make a good engineer and vice versa.
Engineering is not as good as medical but we are talking about software engineering 
The revered IT professional!
Minority girls are as smart as you are. They are not objects to be manipulated by carefully crafted “messages”. It’s an insult to them.
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It wasn’t minority girls it was ALL girls and minority males, you’ve totally missed the point on this whole conversation and read the freaking website before you come back with comments regarding info you have no context on
Is that typical? How come I don’t remember seeing a lot of minority female doctors?
We are all “manipulated” by society massages unconsciously. Men are socialized to play with guns and act tough and girls play with dolls and caring. Before we over emphasized the combative gaming aspect of computer programming most programmers were women.
If we start paying mechanical engineers $1M a year, do you think software engineering still more respected than mechanical engineering?
Economics is the basis of all other things
I remember hearing an interview of Stanford’s AI lab director. She had this summer program for girls that emphasizes the societal impact of programming and it turns out girls responded much more enthusiastically.
Right now most programming is taught in a game like manner. Instead of using AI to win chess how about using AI to help hospital patients? Most computer curriculums were designed by men and its natural they chose subjects of interest to them.
It’s such an irony that people are trying to manipulate girls and minorities into STEM field when the women and minority STEM practitioners are leaving STEM.
We don’t want the National Academy of Engineering to become a Nagging Tiger Mom and entice girls and minorities into something they don’t enjoy. Show more respect to girls and minorities. They are not your Barbie toys.
Some women and men engineers dislike their job. They are forced to choose engineering by their tiger parents to secure their finances, but they really regret and wish to leave engineering career behind. But most of them never have the courage to leave.
Other than a higher income, I don’t see any reason to force girls and minorities to uninteresting STEM. Almost every engineer I know love other subjects better than STEM. Only a minority of the engineers truly have a passion for engineering, most of them are in for the better pay.
If software engineer pay is half of physical therapist, I think nobody would want to force girls and minorities to software engineering.
Trash collectors are 97% male. There’s no program to encourage women to become trash collectors. Skilled trades are male dominated, and no one cares. Skilled trades are one of the highest paying options for people without a degree. They even pay more than many degrees that exist. Yet, we encourage women to pile up debt on degrees that don’t lead to jobs. Somehow a BA and working at Starbucks is more prestigious than plumber.
If trash collectors make 200k a year then sure we need to encourage more women into trash collection.
One of the biggest reasons to have more women and minority in IT is of course economical. As a society we want to divide the spoils more evenly.
I also say we need to encourage more men into nursing. Fewer guns and more dolls for boys.
More women have degrees than men. But some no degree men earn more than some degreed women. Is this a social justice issue? Shall we equalize pay for garbage collectors and nursing home nurses?
Also shall college admit 50% girls instead of 60%?
Girls pay with guns and boys with Barbie dolls? We can ask Jerry Brown to sign it into law.
Also force more SATH women to work. Force more working men to become SAHD. Make a law also