More on Recruiting Women to STEM
Dear friends of women in science,
We discussed taking the mystery out of hiring women (per a study in UK) a couple of weeks ago, see that discussion here. On July 10, US News and World Report carried a piece by Katy Hopkins on ways to encourage more STEM majors. You can view it here.
Hopkins focused on the ideas of Alicia Abella, the executive director of technical research at AT&T Labs. She got interested in computer science during high school back in the 1980s, and pursued it through the bachelors degree and PhD at Columbia University in New York City. Here are a few highlights from her interview.
Asked why we should want to entice more women into STEM fields, Abella said, "The country as a whole is in need of more scientists and engineers. There's just not enough of them going into these areas. We have this untapped pool of people in women and minority students that, if we encourage them, could have a very fulfilling life in the science and engineering fields." She sees a major barrier in the nerdy image of STEM people, including "sitting in a basement eating donuts with really greasy hair." So she argues for real world women in STEM to provide role models who contradict that image.
Some questions high school girls have asked her recently include these: "what's my salary; how do I balance my work life and having a family; is it hard?" She thinks we shouldn't try to pretend its all fun or hide the fact that science work can be challenging and hard, but let the girls know it can pay well, it can be exciting to figure out how to overcome a big obstacle, and that women have succeeded at it. In other words, "the rewards are great."
For students who feel challenged, she recommends both mentors and peer groups that work together to support each other. Asked if it's ever too late to consider such a field, she said she has a new woman in her lab who just got degree in engineering after having completed a degree in art and design and then switched fields. So, she'd encourage people to try it if they are interested, even if they're older or in a different area of studies.
Abella is not very impressed with how universities talk with their students about their possible futures. Maybe if they did a better job of that, she thinks, STEM recruiting could be a lot easier. Basically, she says, "I think of a STEM degree as a degree in problem solving. If you think of life as something where you're always going to be solving problems, then you're pretty well equipped to succeed in life when you have a STEM degree. Something as simple as that can actually help to encourage people to go into those fields."
cheers,
Laura
Hi Roxann and Sherrie,
Yes, I think child-care is more on our screens than ever, thank goodness. It's about time, but it took Ceci and Williams to make the suits pay attention.
And Sherrie, I agree that if everyone doing something looks different from you, and if you're insecure, you could easily decide it's not something suited for you to do. That makes perfect sense to me, unfortunately. So we're gonna have to send some nerds to the bathhouse to get a shampoo, tell them to clean themselves up, and thus make the women who love computers more comfortable! And maybe those women will hang out (congregate) with the few women already in the field, like Jodi Forlizzi, whom I admire.
best,
Laura
I think a part of the problem is that even within the STEM disciplines you sometimes have people who re-inforce stereotypes about how a scientist is supposed to look, dress, act, etc. For a lot of young women especially, this may be an issue that affects their progress because if they don't fit that "geeky" looking mold then they must obviously not be smart enough to have an engineering or science degree.
Dear Laura,
I pretty much agree with what she says here, at least for engineering and cs. I'm not sure it applies for biology; there are some much better looking guys hanging around the bio area if you ask me. But the CS guys are such classic nerds no one could find them an attractant for sure.
I think making good money and finding satisfying challenges can sell to girls, but they also will want to know about child-care etc etc. Can you find both?
RXS
