Women keep women in engineering, study shows

Women keep women in engineering, study showsWomen keep women in engineering, study showsEngineers build the infrastructure to everything we use but there are still not enough women pursuing this important career- a 2012 government report found that only 14% of U.S. engineers are women.But a new study has found that a female mentor can make all the differencefor keeping women in engineering.A 2017 University of Massachusetts-Amherst studyfound that female engineering students who had a fellow female engineering student as a peer mentor became mora motivated, more confident, felt increased senses of belonging and were less likely to drop out of their engineering courses.This is especially significant because 40% of women engineers quit the field or never use their degree.Female peer mentors increase retentionIn a multiyear field experiment, researchers recruited 150 female engineering students and randomly gave them a female mentor, a male mentor, or no mentor.The students would meet o nce a month with their mentors to discuss homework, careers, and everyday academic problems.That one-on-one time made a difference. The first-year femalestudentswithout mentors were more likely to consider switchingtheir major out of the engineering field.Female students with mentors were more likely than other groups to want to pursue engineering after college.100% of the women paired withfemale mentors stayedin engineering - compared with 82% of female students with male mentors and 89% of those who didnt have mentors.The study is yet another refutation of the widely discredited Queen Bee theory that suggests that more experienced women push down younger women. Several studies, including this one, demonstrate the opposite that women can create powerful networks for each other.Mentors preserve your self-confidenceStudents with female mentors maintained their belief that they possessed the skills to overcome academic difficulties. Meanwhile, students with male mentors or no mentors were more likely to feel increasingly anxious and overwhelmed in their first year.Its not that having a female mentor increased belonging or confidence- it just preserved it, researcher Nilanjana Dasgupta said.Researchers found that grades didnt affect students commitment to engineering, but their sense of belonging and confidence did. Although female students with male mentors had slightly more stable grade point averages than other groups, that didnt translate to wanting to stay in engineering.That makes sense. You can be a high-performing academic achiever, but it wont matter if you dont believe in yourself.That self-confidence was most seen with female mentees who had supportive role modelswho looked like them. Although mentees reported admiring both their male and female mentors, women mentees felt somewhat closer and more similar to female mentors than male mentors, the study said.As the Dasgupta told The Atlantic, you can be whatyou cant see. She believes that our ability al one doesnt determine whether we stay in or leave a field. Its ability mixed in that feeling that these are your people, this is where you belong.And for young women, thats what a female mentor can give you in a critical point in your early career a future that you can see because shes right in front of you.