Design Thinking
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School
University of Florida *
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Course
3000
Subject
English
Date
Apr 3, 2024
Type
Pages
1
Uploaded by DeanInternet13143
Action Plan: Increase the percentage of women practicing engineering Understanding the Problem:
Interview women already practicing engineering about their journey to get where they’re at now and what hardships they faced.
Interview female engineering students, ask them about their plan in the future and how the experience has been thus far.
Interview a diverse number of female students grades K-12, ask them their thoughts on math and science. Ask what, if anything, has made them not want to pursue a career in STEM. Interviewing these three different groups of women will give a broad idea of what women think of engineering. Focus on the interviews of the K-12 students as this is who the target demographic is. Most women would say the reason they don’t want a career in engineering is because of the stereotypes surrounding it. It is a male dominated field and many women tend to doubt their abilities even though they are performing at the same level as men. This is the result of patriarchal and systemic issues within the field. Thinking Different:
Ask a small group of men in engineering, and male engineering students why they believe there is significantly less women in engineering.
Ask the K-12 students “what if you had a female mentor for guidance”, “would you been keener to pursue a career in engineering if there were more women”, “why do you think you aren’t smart enough for this career”. Getting the opinion from a group of men will help validate how many women feel. Using their responses, we can tailor how guidance is given to younger women. Asking the following questions, especially the last, will give tell us how to guide women to choose a career in engineering. Propose Innovative Solutions:
Implement a system for current engineering students to mentor female students in grades 6-12 that may have an interest in engineering. This mentorship is no-strings attached, via text/phone for voluntary students only.
Take advantage of practicing female engineers that also have a passion for education, as frequently as possibly have them go to elementary/middle schools to give short demos to inspire girls to be like her. Elementary/middle school students are the target demographic so focusing on exposing them to as much as possible at a young age will help influence their decision in the future. High school students typically already know what they want to do so giving them a resource to depend on will help retain them in the field. As a woman that’s gone through many of these experiences, I can say with certainty that if I was exposed to more female engineers when I was younger and had a mentor, my feelings towards engineering would be much different. It would be much less intimidating and my confidence in pursuing it would be much stronger
. Increasing the amount of women in engineering has an easy fix but the implementation is much more difficult. Providing guidance and establishing support systems for young girls will significantly boost the number of women pursuing engineering careers.
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