Hi and welcome back!
Today I want to talk to you a little bit about how women are becoming successful in their engineering careers. According to an article titled "Women in Engineering" by Lisa M. Frehill, Peggy Layne, Ane Turner Johnson, and Sarah Hood, the key to a women's success in this field lies in the mentoring that she had access to. If she had more mentoring opportunities, she was more successful. I think this is a really important component that further proves how universities are incorporating the needs of females into their programs. Below is a brief overview of the article.
Mentoring has nearly become famous for its influence on their success. Articles appeared in in-flight magazines of major airlines and academic journals. Universities have started advertising different programs they have available. Everyone know that mentoring has a huge influence, but what exactly does mentoring provide the student?
First, we need to talk about the two kinds of mentoring. There is career mentoring and then there is psychological mentoring. Career mentoring, in order to be successful according to this article, should focus on finding someone in the student's future career path to act as a mentor and a guide. Psychological mentoring, on the other hand, should be focused on creating a bond between the counselor and the student in order for the student to gain emotional support and to build self-confidence. Through the combination of both of these types of mentoring, women find their careers in engineering more enjoyable and are thus more productive.
In all, I think this article helps to argue my point that the movement towards engineering is being driven by the confidence level of females. Due to society encouraging bravery, self-confidence, and boldness, women are starting to feel more comfortable pursuing this career. Furthermore, these mentoring programs act as stepping stones that help females get from where they are to where they want to be in their career despite the obstacles they might face!
I plan on looking into various examples of programs offered by schools that help females make the transition and help them find success. Come back next week for more! :)
If you have any questions on the article discussed above, or if you would like to read it for yourself, you can find it here.
Was the article arguing that women will benefit from having gender-specific mentoring programs, or that increasing the availability of such programs for all students will even the playing field and give women more access to engineering education/jobs?
ReplyDeleteWere there any numbers in your articles that talk about how big of an impact this makes on women as compare to women who don't undergo these programs?
ReplyDeleteWhen I went to college I joined a fraternity. Now the first reaction you might think is Animal House parties and Greek Week competitions. But what really drew me in was the comradery of the guys. They were there to look out for you. This included mentoring you in many things including how to act, which teachers not to take, subject advising, emotional support during hard times, and many other things. They helped mold me into the man I am today. When I graduated, my first job gave me a mentor. I thought this was silly at first but much like my fraternity, it had a dramatic effect on my life. He steered me around failures, help incorporate me into the business, was a person I could any question to, and mostly I am thankful for was he taught me how to think like an engineer. I was extremely lucky to get the mentors that I ended up with. Being that you are still in high school, have you had anybody you would consider a mentor and how did they help you?
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