Mother McAuley High School sophomore Madison Martin said she had not been aware of the array of opportunities in the engineering field prior to her liberal arts high school dedicating one school day to Introduce a Girl to Engineering.
Grabbing the attention of students like Martin was precisely the point of the program, which put a female engineer as guest speaker into every science classroom in February.
“It is important to expose female students to opportunities to learn about fields of study or careers they may not be familiar with in order to open their eyes to possibilities,” said Kimberly Turnbull, who leads the science department at McAuley.
The school surveyed students following the event and results showed that more than three-quarters of students reported an increase in knowledge of engineering in general and 25% of students reported they would consider engineering as a major, Turnbull said.
“It was a great day to see how receptive and interested our students were,” she said.
Those percentages came as encouraging news to science teachers and to the school’s principal as they focus on directing female students into male-dominated fields, according to information provided by the communications director.
Those career fields, Turnbull explained, are science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM.
“We are constantly reminded that females are underrepresented in STEM fields,” she said.
McAuley requires four years of science for graduation. The school has taken a number of initiatives in recent years to further the interest of students in STEM careers, said Jennifer Busk, director of marketing and communications. Adding courses related to engineering is one such initiative, she said. A robotics course will be offered in the 2020/2021 school year.
Half of McAuley students reported having an increased interest in engineering after hearing from the engineering professionals, according to the survey. Speakers came from Cargill, Cisco and Splunk.
Martin, who is taking two high-level science courses, is definitely intrigued.
“What interested me most is that there are a variety of applications and opportunities in the field of engineering,” she said.
Prior to hearing from the guest speakers, Martin said she had the impression that a degree in engineering would be limiting in scope. But both speakers she heard stressed that a degree in engineering has a variety of applications.
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Martin said she also appreciated that all the speakers at her all-girls’ school were women.
“In a field which we are told is dominated by men, I feel it should not only be men who have ideas for the world,” the 16-year-old said.
Martin said the experience was empowering.
That is the same word principal Eileen O’Reilly to announce the school participating in the Amazon Future Engineer program, a program promoted to advance the number of women in STEM careers.
O’Reilly said that the school’s efforts to bring these programs to McAuley helps to narrow the gap between the number of women and men in STEM professions.
Barbara Dargis is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.