Introduction to my Capstone Project

As it is apparent that I am a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Exploration and Engagement Scholar, I am focusing my second-year capstone project on STEM—more specifically, women in STEM. This correlates with my interview project that I did with my first year STEM seminar class because I focused on an undergraduate, graduate, and professor within the biological field. I interviewed them all on their different experiences thus far within STEM and how the tips and tricks they acquired as a minority within STEM.

Even though STEM has a stereotype to be “male-dominated,” it has rapidly transformed over the past couple of years. For example, female scientists and engineers are more concentrated in different occupations than their male counterparts. There are high amounts of women in the social sciences (60%) and biological, agricultural, and environmental life sciences (48%), according to the National Science Foundation Science and Engineering Indicators report in 2018. However, with these high statistics, there are still low percentages of women in engineering (15%) and mathematical and computer sciences (26%).

So, my partner, fellow second-year, industrial systems engineer Sara Derge and I decided to delve into a wider gamut of women within STEM to see how despite there is an increased amount of women within STEM, there are still major disparities within this field. Why are there significantly fewer women in engineering fields but more in research? How do their experiences within these varied fields differ? Do they face any prejudice—simply because of their gender?

We plan on interviewing women in a plethora of fields, no matter their higher-level education—from undergraduate, graduate, doctorate, and professional level. We want to find out if there are any pragmatic differences that need to be addressed within STEM’s “exclusive” field. We want to know if there really are prejudices that are holding women back from being a part of the field.

With that, we’ll see where this project goes through with my next posts updating the progression of it. I hope you’ll are just as excited as I am to see this societal and gender issue being addressed.