The School of Engineering Technology is apart of the College of Engineering at the University of Maine. The College of Engineering as a whole is a majority male. There are multiple enrollment reports which restate the obvious fact that there are more men than women in engineering. I'll sum up the statistics to give you a rough idea of what kind of numbers we are working with.

This report gives the general enrollment statistics by major for Graduate and Undergraduate students.

This report lists the male to female demographic by major for each school and college under the University of Maine.

In my major I know 6 out of the 11 women total enrolled. In my year specifically, I am one of four. I know at least one of the three second years and the only third year. Within my major as a whole, there are 159 men to 11 women. I have never had a class coded for my major without another female in it strictly because we all have roughly the same path to graduation.

When you look at the SET School as a whole there are 457 men to 31 women total. The most women I have ever had in a class is about 12 and that was because everyone in SET has to take Technical Physics before we can get to more of the fun hands-on classes. Although many students probably would disagree with me, Technical Physics was pretty fun too.

Photo by Fancycrave on Unsplash

Even though women in Engineering Tech are few and far between it is not necessarily a bad thing, at least not from my perspective. Maybe 30 years ago it would have been problematic, but that would have been mostly caused by sexist attitudes popular at the time. The men I take classes with are extremely smart and results focused, the gender card is never really an issue.

Being one of few girls have made it easier believe it or not to create friendships with the other women in my major as well as the men. I roomed with one of them last year, had projects and studied with others. I'm not sure that if there were more women we would all work as well together. Group dynamics are tricky no matter what the dynamics of the group are.

Men may vastly outnumber women in my major, the School of Engineering Technology, and the College of Engineering as a whole but that doesn't mean it a problem. College is where you find out what you really want to do and plenty of people start off in a major that doesn't fit them. People are continuously dropping or swapping majors. minors, concentrations, and everything in between.

Photo by Pim Chu on Unsplash

Should there be more female engineers? Yes. Should girls and women still be encouraged to join STEM fields? Yes. Should boys and men also be encouraged? Yes. Is the amount of men in engineering a problem? No.

Everyone should be encouraged to follow their paths of interest and to find the field, major, job, or career they will be the happiest in. All of that work should start way earlier than college. From kindergarten, all the way through high school children should have support systems which allow them to develop skills pertaining to their interests or be allowed to discover something new without being asked, "Are you sure, there are mostly boys in those classes?" Or "Only girls take those classes."

Just because you are the minority gender-wise does not mean you can't succeed and it doesn't make you any less of a woman or a man. You are how you define yourself, through your actions, your character, and how you present yourself to the world. Whether you are one of five women in Surveying Engineering Technology or the one man enrolled in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies as long as you are happy, how many men or women there are in your program really shouldn't be an issue.