#GAReads | How the University of Connecticut Doubled the Women Majoring in Engineering
by Daderot [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
"How the University of Connecticut Doubled the Number of Women Majoring in Engineering":
The lack of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs continues to be a concern of organizations such as the IEEE and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Addressing this problem means encouraging more girls to study the field at degree level: More than four out of five engineering majors in most colleges and universities in the United States are men. While a handful of programs (like at Yale, MIT, and the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering) are already at or near 50/50 parity, the vast majority of engineering programs have a long way to go.
However, the University of Connecticut’s engineering program has seen its female enrollment more than double since 2009, from 322 students in 2009 to 688 in 2015. (This translates to 28 percent of the engineering majors in the class of 2020.) The school attributes its rising female enrollment numbers to a suite of programs aimed at girls across a range of ages.