Why did you decide to go into engineering ? Charlotte : I was very interested in math and physics before applying to college so engineering was a natural choice . My family was also always very supportive and encouraging of my interests from a young age .
Taraneh : Math and science have always been a passion of mine , like they would be any true engineer . The theories we learned in physics and math classes always fascinated me . I always wondered why and how scientists came up with those relations and equations . Once I learned the applications of these thousands of equations , it was so mind opening , I decided to do engineering .
Why have so few woman taken up engineering as a career ? Charlotte : I think there is still a fair amount of bias towards women in science at every stage of the game from elementary school , to college , to the workplace . Though as a society , I think we have progressed and I think most men who traditionally occupy those environments are genuinely open to having more women , it ’ s not for everyone and I know a lot of women who ’ ve decided to take up other careers because they got tired of dealing with the hostility or just the imbalance . I feel supported right now at P2S but I ’ ve also been in plenty of environments where I didn ’ t so I see it both ways .
Taraneh : Unfortunately , engineering is still viewed as a masculine major . It ’ s a loop that we are stuck in , a catch-22 . The less visibility women have in engineering , the easier it is to depict it as field which men dominate almost completely . If engineering continues to be thought as a manly field , women will continue to be implicitly discouraged from pursuing it , just as was with the other STEM fields . It ’ s a barrier we have to work to break .
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