2009 WEPAN National Conference Keynote Luncheon Presentation
Women in engineering: Interests, perspectives, confidence…and experiences
CAEE Director, Cindy Atman, delivered the 2009 WEPAN National Conference Keynote Luncheon address based on results from
the Academic Pathways Study on June 18, 2009. The title of Dr. Atman's
talk was "Women in engineering: Interests, perspectives, confidence…and experiences."
The presentation included an interactive session with audience members who recorded their thoughts on a response form
handed out at the beginning of the session. Selected quotes from this interactive session are shown below with links
to the full transcript of all the comments and the presentation slides.
A major theme in the comments was the issue of women's confidence in engineering:
If neglected, women’s beliefs and confidence will be unsupported and dissuade them
from the value of engineering. They may not/probably not practice as engineers. This is the chilly climate. Perceptions are important to women –
especially to know that their own are valued by others.
Importance that they don’t have to be perfect at every class. Women feel less confident than men in classes even
though they may be doing better academically.
Experience builds the confidence (its affirmation), broadens perspective and builds the interest. Now they’ll spend
less time questioning themselves, proving themselves, now they transition to 'being' the engineer/scientist.
Another recurring theme related to how women become interested in, and learn about, engineering:
Their experiences in engineering school may spark other interests in engineering – they may learn about engineering
applications they hadn’t known of before. On the other hand, if their experience in engineering school does not open new
options for them, i.e., are more narrow, their interest and confidence that engineering is a good fit for them may
decline.
Presentation slides from the 2009 WEPAN Keynote Luncheon presentation are located
here, (pdf, 740kb).
Participant thoughts (anonymized transcript) from the 2009 WEPAN Keynote Luncheon presentation are located
here (pdf, 236kb).