Recruit girls to engineering by appealing to their brains

In a recent New York Times Op-Ed, a female professor of the University of California - Berkeley argued that women will be attracted to engineering if they believe the work benefits society. Lina Nilsson, who has a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, also states that to increase the number of women in engineering, we need to reframe the goals of engineering research and curricula to be more relevant to societal needs.

As a female at a Midwest civil engineering company, I find this idea couldn't be further from the truth. I got into engineering because I liked math and science in high school. My interest was first piqued when I job shadowed engineers at the Rock Island District, Army Corps of Engineers. I later returned to the Corps as a co-op in college. I was attracted to civil engineering because it offered the most varied work experience.

On a day-to-day basis, I design roadways and water and sanitary sewer systems. I'm working on the West Des Moines South Eighth Street construction project that will serve the Microsoft Data Facility Campus. I've also designed the force main relocation under the Turkey River in Elkader, Iowa that was necessary as a result of flooding. One of my most recent projects is the design of sanitary sewer improvements for the City of Truro.

That's not to say I don't care about helping society. Projects related to the new Microsoft facility, including new housing and future commercial businesses, will encourage economic development. I've worked with my co-workers to provide planning and infrastructure design and construction related services for the redevelopment of Elkader. This community now offers an attractive new Founders' Park and a white-water feature this is gaining national recognition.

Helping society is a natural bi-product of the engineering world. We don't need to seek out ways to meet societal needs. That is just what we do. I design roads to get people from one point to another. We clean and transport drinking water and bring it to people's homes. Every time you flush the toilet, we are the people responsible for disposing of the sewage and treating it. Sometimes it is not a glamorous job, and it gets overlooked compared to the doctors and lawyers of the world that everyone hears of making an impact. But we know what we do is important, and that is why we do it.

So what do engineering firms need to do? First, they need to cultivate and nurture girls and young women who have the skills to succeed in an engineering field. Tactics could range from mentoring to summer programs to 'office hours” and more. There should be efforts to promote job shadowing of technical professionals by high school students. Engineering departments at colleges and universities also need to be more proactive in recruitment on campus.

The other way to attract female engineers is to reach out to them to at a young age - before they lose interest. I volunteered this winter at the Girls in Science Festival at the Science Center of Iowa. There was an amazing response from young girls who were interested in the STEM fields. These are the kind of activities that we need to get females into the engineering community. The industry needs to sponsor these kinds of events, have our female engineers attend and act as role models for these girls and show them the possibilities of what they can do as engineers in the future.

Once a woman graduates, she is more likely to stay in the engineering field than her male counterpart, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. I take that to mean women who are in engineering like to work in engineering. I know I do.

Don't belittle women by thinking we can only work in jobs that fill our hearts and souls. Because then you would be overlooking the real reason why we work in engineering - to show off our brains.

' Nichole Sungren is a senior project engineer for MSA Professional Services in Des Moines. Comments: nsungren@msa-ps.com