Career-Ready Women Engineers
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
“You don't have to absolutely and only love math to be a good engineer because it's problem solving. In order to solve our current problems and our future problems, we need a range of people who have a range of interests.”
Since the 1980s, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo's
Women in Engineering Program (WEP) has been recruiting and retaining women engineering and computer science students by focusing on outreach, on-campus support and workforce preparation.
While women continue to be underrepresented in the engineering workforce—only
13 percent are women—Cal Poly is taking steps to attract more women to the various engineering disciplines.
WEP Director Helene Finger explains that Cal Poly's
College of Engineering has a goal to have its demographic mirror the state of California, which is 50% women. “We're up to 28% women in our incoming freshmen classes for the past few years. And as time goes on, our women students at Cal Poly and the College of Engineering are very academically successful," says Finger. “We're trying to get up to that 50% mark and really being thoughtful about making sure we're reaching out to women of color in particular."
Some of Cal Poly's 13 engineering degree programs, such as biomedical engineering and environmental engineering, have more than half women enrolled, while women are
less represented in other majors, including mechanical and electrical engineering, Finger says.
Working closely with the
Society of Women Engineers (SWE), Finger explains that Cal Poly's WEP wants to send the message that there are many opportunities for women to earn bachelor's degrees that will bring in a wage that can support their family.
One of the ways in which they attract more women to the field is through outreach via K-12 and community college partners to let women and girls know that there are many options in engineering. “You don't have to absolutely and only love math to be a good engineer because it's problem solving," Finger says. While engineering majors will need to use math and science skills, many of Cal Poly's students—especially women—have broad interests. “In order to solve our current problems and our future problems, we need a range of people who have a range of interests."
Broad interests and problem-solving abilities have prepared Cal Poly's women engineering grads to be job-ready on day one. “We have female alumni in every major who are doing amazing things," Finger says. From NASA JPL to Disney to Google and Tesla, “they have been a really sought after group of students in industry."
Beyond industry, some Cal Poly women engineering alumni are paying it forward in the academic field. One alumna is leading up diversity and inclusion efforts at Cal State Fullerton, and another is now an environmental engineering professor at Cal Poly Pomona.
Story: HAZEL KELLY
Photography: Courtesy of Cal Poly
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