Women In Science & Engineering

So, I’m starting a new feature on my blog, where every month I will be discussing a female figure in science or engineering. The way that they have made a difference in the field that they are or have been working in and why they should be recognised for the work that they have done (AKA: WISE)

I have my sights set on becoming a Medical Engineer when I’m older and there are a few reasons behind my decision for that: I want to be able to help people. I want to be able to know that I’m doing something that is making even the smallest difference and I don’t do to well with blood (unless it’s in a documentary) so being a doctor was ruled out straight away. As well as that, I love doing things that involve practical work, the office type of job is not something that I think would suit me too well. I also love science and technology. They are both things that have been with us a while and, especially in science, we are continuously discovering new things which really fascinates me and I would love to be a part of that.

It all kick started off because I realised that teaching was no longer something that I wanted to go into. Though I have a huge respect for teachers and what they do, I didn’t think it would be something that I would do very well or enjoy very much. So, I ended up speaking to my sister and my mam about it who both asked about the two things I liked doing in school and they pointed me in the direction of engineering, which after I looked into a lot I decided that the field that I wanted to go into was Medical Engineering. My parents and my sister were more than happy to support me in my choice and helped me find out more about it as well.

What I found a lot of though, was that every single time I told someone that I wanted to go into engineering they all seemed to turn to me and go, “Well, you don’t see many girls in engineering!” or “It’s nice to see a girl going into engineering, it’s an extremely male dominated field!” and the most popular one which was, “It’ll be easy for you to get a job in engineering since you’re a girl, they’re looking for more females to go into it!” Now it wasn’t the people who were saying these things that were annoying me so much but more for the fact that there is such a stigma about it.

I understand that there are some fields of work and study that are often heavily dominated by a certain gender because that’s just the way things are sometimes but there’s such a surprise when you hear a female wanting to go into science or engineering or a male wanting to go into a humanities subject. It should have to be such a huge surprise to someone that people want to show an interest in a field that “isn’t dominated by their gender”.

I really don’t like the fact either that because I am a female that wants to go into engineering I’ll be more likely to have get a job against males. I want to know that if I do get interviewed for a job after University that I’ll get it off my own merit, that they won’t just look at my gender and automatically have me in mind before even looking through the rest of my CV. I don’t want to be there just to fill up a quota for people.

So, starting next month I shall be exploring different women in science and engineering.

*Image of girls taken from Google, banner made by myself 

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