[Igor Antunov]

Two engineering professors have published the results of a new study that sheds light on why so few women graduate college with a STEM degree.

Led by Colorado School of Mines professor Greg Rulifson, the study tracked 34 freshmen engineering majors over the course of four years to explore what makes students, especially women, abandon engineering in lieu of other fields.

Of the 21 female students interviewed, fully one-third left engineering by their junior year. Rulifson and his co-author Angela Bielefeldt identified one factor common to all female students who left: the desire to “help society/other people,” or “social responsibility.”

The “social responsibility” definition includes “care for the marginalized and disadvantaged,” “environmental conservation,” and “empathy,” the professors noted.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/study-wome ... e-degrees/

Guess the leftist social engineering mantras aren't taking root. Women keep gravitating to what they enjoy doing.

[Suntzu]

They left STEM because it was hard.

[colliric]

I'd like to know, of the percentage of women that stayed, how many were lesbians with elevated levels of testosterone.....

I would think it would be higher retention rate.

[Godstud]

Few women pursue engineering degrees, yet more women are in medicine. It's just how it is.

I'd like to know, of the percentage of women that stayed, how many were lesbians with elevated levels of testosterone.....

I am sure you can find a source for such a silly claim? Do lesbians even have elevated levels of testosterone, to begin with, to even slightly validate such a line of reasoning?

[colliric]

Few women pursue engineering degrees, yet more women are in medicine. It's just how it is.

I am sure you can find a source for such a silly claim? Do lesbians even have elevated levels of testosterone, to begin with, to even slightly validate such a line of reasoning?

Yes they do...

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... 892229.htm

An older article, but it's been proven for years they have higher levels of male hormones than straight women.

[Godstud]

So how does higher level of testosterone determine careers?

[colliric]

So how does higher level of testosterone determine careers?

Hormones of cause affect the brain(psychology) and muscle tissue(how strong a person feels and is). And have even been proven to have an effect on sexual orientation.

Simple fact is they are likely to act more manly and like more manly things to like including other women of cause.

Which, you know, most lesbians do.... We all know that already....

[Godstud]

Please provide a source that's relevant to the topic. What you're saying, is not.

[colliric]

Please provide a source that's relevant to the topic. What you're saying, is not.

Bang....

http://news.psu.edu/story/155787/2011/0 ... er-choices

Well you asked me to pull the trigger....

[Godstud]

You got me dead bang.

[4cal]

If they left because it was hard....it would be college wide because college is hard in and of itself and not limited to STEM fields.

I would imagine some left because of the difficulty of the subject matter.
Some probably find it incredibly boring--I know I would.
Some probably find that the curriculum is too long vs a Liberal Arts Degree.

However, more women are graduating from college than men. I doubt "too hard" plays much of a role.

[Igor Antunov]

What you enjoy greatly defines how hard or easy it is for you. But having done a whole bunch of tertiary level courses (50+) ranging from hard stem to more social fields like Business, History etc; the technical and hard science courses were much more involved/difficult despite me enjoying them more.

That said, at the end of the day, I'd rather be bored shitless doing absolute programming (eg CNC coding, obsessive calibration) than wiping the asses of old people in a hospital or listening to the whining of post-op patients. The latter would be much harder on me mentally and honestly I could not handle it.

[Godstud]

Watch this series. It talks a lot about this topic of geography technology, etc. It looks at how the Europeans gained the advantages.

Guns Germs and Steel

[colliric]

You and me both the same.

I would hate working in a hospital.

[Igor Antunov]

Watch this series. It talks a lot about this topic of geography technology, etc. It looks at how the Europeans gained the advantages.

Guns Germs and Steel

Wrong thread.

And yes I would agree that Europeans were shaped by/adapted to many geographic advantages. Thing is they continued to prosper, wherever they subsequently settled because adaption is the mother of invention (and vice versa). It feeds into itself. The consistently successful tend to become more successful over time. This is not granted privilege, this is earned. Each generation has to keep contributing just to maintain prior achievements. Look to the collapse of infrastructure and standards of living once the colonialists left for proof that you must work hard just to maintain the contributions of your ancestors.

[Godstud]

Colonialism left a huge negative impact on Africa, and pretending otherwise is to ignore history.

Back to the topic. I don't see what the big deal is. Women want to have a bigger role in society, and how they do that is up to them. I am a feminist in that I want equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.

[Wellsy]

Is interesting that the image of engineering is one which is seen as distant from helping people.
Then again, it is perhaps such an area of expertise where there may well be significant restrictions on the work of some and what ends they are used towards.
http://stdrogo.blogspot.com/2008/06/disciplined-minds-rowman-littlefield.html

P. 2 - "I argue that the hidden root of much career dissatisfaction is the professional's lack of control over the 'political' component of his or her creative work. Explaining this component is a major focus of this book. Today's disillusioned professionals entered their fields expecting to do work that would 'make a difference' in the world and add meaning to their lives. In this book I show that, in fact, professional education and employment push people to accept a role in which they do not make a significant difference, a politically subordinate role. I describe how the intellectual boot camp known as graduate or professional school, with its cold-blooded expulsions and creeping indoctrination, systematically grinds down the student's spirit and ultimately produces obedient thinkers - highly educated employees who do their assigned work without questioning its goals. I call upon students and professionals to engage in such questioning, not only for their own happiness, but for society's sake as well."

As such, it may not be an issue confined to engineering and perhaps its a good thing that they emphasize the good such skills can and do have for a society and it's people.

In regards to engineering, it's not just an issue of training women, but retaining them in the field.
Stemming the tide: Why women leave engineering

[MistyTiger]

Some women have started to pursue STEM fields. Accounting is actually a science and women and men are going back to school to study Accounting because it's a growing field. The demand for Accounting professionals exists. I plan to pursue my Master's degree in Accounting in a year or so.

[SolarCross]

Some women have started to pursue STEM fields. Accounting is actually a science and women and men are going back to school to study Accounting because it's a growing field. The demand for Accounting professionals exists. I plan to pursue my Master's degree in Accounting in a year or so.

It's a craft rather than a science, i'd file it under T for technology or M for Math rather than S for Science. I actually think the STEM acronym is a little wonky as it has a redundancy in Technology and Engineering. Perhaps it should including Business, another craft which includes accountancy as well? BEMS?

[Pants-of-dog]

Here is the link to the actual study.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... ccess=true

The abstract:

Engineering should include concern for people, communities, and societal welfare at the heart of the profession. Focusing on these helping attributes of engineering may help draw individuals, particularly women, into the field. However, are prosocially motivated individuals leaving engineering during college due to the lack of social responsibility (SR) typically portrayed in their education? Understanding more about students’ reasons for leaving in relation to perceived social responsibilities through their careers can help fill this literature gap. Thirty-four students initially majoring in engineering participated in a qualitative study of SR in engineering. Among this cohort, 7 of 14 women motivated to help people/society through engineering left, compared with 0 of 7 whose professional motivations were less related to social impact goals. Three rounds of hour-long interviews with nine students who left engineering explored reasons for leaving, if/how their personal SR impacted their decision, and social impact opportunities they envisioned through their new potential career path. The interviews show professional prosocial desires are motivation to leave combined with unsupportive environments, decontextualized technical courses, and curricular difficulty. These results provide insights for those trying to: understand why talented students choose to leave engineering, and create a more responsible and caring engineering profession.

So the thread title is misleading. It is not that women are leaving STEM fields, but that people who care about social responsibility are leaving engineering because engineering is lacking in providing a social responsibility context for their work. Some of these people happen to be women.