In my foundations of engineering class all students were put into groups of four based off a survey that inquired about work style and time availability. In a class that is male heavy, I was pretty surprised that my group ended up consisting of four females. The funny thing is there were more females in my small group than there are in some classes of 60 students. The four of us are able to communicate with each other incredibly well, support and help one another, and most importantly listen to all of each other’s ideas. The four of us were one of the most powerful and successful group in the class, as well as a favorite of our professor. Then half way through the year we were given the chance to form a mega team with another group of four. Again interestingly enough, the group ratio ended up being six females and two males. I was excited to work in the female heavy group seeing how well it had worked when it was just us four females before, but the minute the males got involved, my ideas were shut down, I was taken off the job of doing coding, and at one point was told completely not to touch the project because I might mess it up.

During this whole mega team formation experience my group was discriminated against again and again. My group sat next to a team made up of four males. They were a great group of guys whom we all got along well with, but when it came time to pick a team to merge with they wanted nothing to do with us. Later when one of my team members asked one of the male team’s members about it, he told her that he really liked us as people but did not know if we would work well together. Based on the fact that we all got along very well, that basically can be interpreted as “I think we will have to do all the hard work because you are all females and do not know how to build things or code.” We ended up with the other group that included two other females, but even with the small ratio of the two boys in the group one of them had something to say about not wanting to work with our group. He told his small team that he did not want to work with our group because we are all girls so we are going to be difficult to work with. Let me preface that I have never spoken to this male before and my group was extremely hard working, friendly, and efficient, so the only reason he thought we would be difficult to work with was because based off the fact we were all female.

Being a female in engineering has been incredibly difficult, and not because the coursework is challenging but because I have to work much harder to be heard and taken seriously. Traditionally someone with my appearance, a feminine blonde who spends a little too much time getting ready for an 8 am class, does not fit the stereotype appearance of being a female engineer as much as someone who should be in a sorority, and that is how I get treated a majority of the time. When I tell people my major, most people are very surprised and make a comment how they thought I would be some sort of liberal arts major at most. One of my best college friends went about 4 months before knowing my major, and when he finally found out said, “Wait are you serious? I thought you were like a psych major or something”, even after I had helped him with his calculus and physics homework.

If you are an Aggie Engineer, you know that physics is one of the hardest courses in the degree plan, if not at the university in general. I took physics my first semester of college and through a lot of hard work, studying, and actually paying attention in class, I received high test scores and eventually made an A in the class. A lot of my fellow students were not so successful in their physics experience. One of my classmates asked me how I was able to get an A and I told him how I actually read the textbook, did practice problems, and went to office hours. As soon as I said I went office hours he said, “Oh well that makes perfect sense.” Confused by this ‘realization”, I asked him how it made perfect sense. He then proceeded to insinuate that I got an A because I flirted with my professor at office hours. This fellow student’s first thought was that the only way I could have made an A in a very difficult class and he did not is because I used my femininity to flirt my way to a good grade. The idea that I was intelligent, understood physics, and was able to work hard seemed much too ridiculous of an idea.

I figured going into college, being surrounded by people who were part of the generation where gender roles and stereotypes were being broken, I would not have to worry about being discriminated against by my gender when I have the intelligence to readily back me up. I noticed things were slightly off since day one, but I did not realize how much of an issue it was until a group that represents minorities in engineering, specifically women, came to talk to my engineering class. At the end of their discussion, they passed out a survey asking about our experiences with seeing or being discriminated against and how much of an issue we thought the bias against women was. The final two questions asked “how large of a problem is bias against women” and “how often do see or experience discrimination based on gender?” My group, made up of all females, all ranked both the question 8-10/10. Our lovely counterpart group made of all males ranked both question 1-3/10.

I recently saw a statistic that claimed only 6.7% women who get a bachelor’s degree get it in a STEM field. I read this fact randomly in passing so I could look into it more on the spot, but I could not help but continue to be curious about what kind of STEM degrees women were getting and why there were so few, so I went to trusty Goggle to learn more. In my search, I came across an article called "Women falling behind in STEM bachelor’s degrees" from The Washington Post and was surprised to read that the ratio of females to males in engineering has dropped over the last 10 years, especially in computer science. But if I look back on my experiences, where males made assumptions about me and did not want to work with me purely because of my gender, if I was not so stubborn, passionate, and determined, I could see how it would deter me from my course of study. I am also not saying it is all the fault of males because I have experienced positive and encouraging interaction with fellow males in engineering and negative with other females. Regardless I can say I have already experienced a handful of acts of discrimination for being a female in engineering within only my first year, but I love my major, my peers, and cannot wait so see what else the field has in store for my future.