At Rockwell event, girls break down engineering stereotypes

If engineering companies want to attract more girls to the field, according to Eastern Iowa eighth graders, holding events like the one they attended Thursday at Rockwell Collins would help.

The aviation electronics giant's 14th annual 'Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day,” held Thursday at its Cedar Rapids headquarters, was intended to teach girls about engineering and encourage them to pursue it as career option - or at least keep their options open.

About 15 to 20 percent of U.S. engineers are women, said Rockwell Collins community relations manager Jenny Becker, one of the organizers. Becker said Rockwell Collins and others have been trying to bring that number up.

The 94 attendees, all eighth-grade girls, listened to a speech by Linda Snow-Solum, a senior director at Rockwell Collins, and then worked in groups to assemble prosthetic hands that could be used by amputees in third-world countries.

At one table, Maquoketa Valley Middle School student Katilyn Deutmeyer said she wants to be a chemical engineer, working to help cancer patients who need chemotherapy.

Deutmeyer said the event was 'powerful” for her.

'(Girls) need to see that they can do whatever they want to do,” she said. 'They don't need to put themselves down because someone says they can't do it.”

Maquoketa Valley students said they were surprised to learn during Snow-Solum's talk that boys considered gifted in math - based on SAT scores - outnumber girls in the same category. Snow-Solum encouraged girls to take advanced math and science classes in high school to keep engineering as a career option.

'I think if more girls went to stuff like this, (the disparity) would definitely change more,” said Emma McDowell, one of Deutmeyer's classmates.

Becker said it's important for that message to reach young girls, who often don't have role models in engineering, before they are dissuaded from pursuing it as a career.

Jade Groen, a Rockwell Collins program manager, agreed.

'I love doing these events,” she said. 'They have all the enthusiasm, and life hasn't beaten them down yet.”