Getting young women interested in the engineering field, or staying with it, is one of those big-picture concerns for many of us, seemingly as complex as finding ways to address poverty, or discrimination or global inflation. It sounds as if I’m exaggerating, but when you hear the stories of individuals, maybe not.
As many editors do, I get reports filled with data on what works in education or the work force, but the stories of personal resolve by women are what stick with me.
One young woman I know went through middle and high school interested in the sciences and excelled. She entered an engineering program at a large university, setting her eyes on a degree early on. There was the normal heavy engineering workload atop a part-time job and competing college demands.
One day, a professor told her she didn’t have the math skills to be an engineer and she was crushed. However, something in her kept her going to another engineering class, where the professor motivated and encouraged her.
Now, she’s waiting for admission to a graduate engineering program so she can ultimately earn a PhD. Why a PhD? There are many engineering jobs, so why go for a PhD?
Because she wants to teach engineering, to encourage young women to enter and excel in the field.
I’m rooting for her, recognizing how difficult the road can be. It made me think back on my own daughter, now grown, and my being told by an educator when she was young that it might not be wise to tell her how hard calculus can be. (She did gain the tech skills and now has a STEM job after an acting career.) Making math fun at a young age really matters, it turns out. Finding ways for middle school girls to work together on building robots or towers or writing programs helps.
If a woman can survive a tough engineering undergrad program, then the social stigma of working a first job with an all-male team can be a gut punch. Every year at Sensors Converge, Women in Sensors Engineering (WISE) meet and talk about the concerns they have faced in a world that is very slowly changing, sometimes too slowly. (The event is June 24-26 in Santa Clara again this year.)
I certainly don’t have the answers, but celebrate the women who have the grit to take up the mantel. The best story I’ve come across lately came from Charlotte Savage who dropped out of engineering school to become an entrepreneur and founded HaiLa Technologies in 2019 based on her interest in backscatter technology. The company now has raised $16.8 million and has produced evaluation kits for two SoCs for passive backscatter to help lower power needs for sensors and other devices. She named the company after Hedy Lamarr, the actress-inventor who developed frequency hopping.
Meeting Savage at CES2024 made me want to learn more about Lamarr who clearly had an ironic sense of female sensuality. She married young and might not have exactly been a feminist, but did once remark, “Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” So, there is again that duality many women engineers say they face: “If I’m smart and assertive as an engineer, my personal allure comes into question.” Men, by contrast, don’t have to balance such things.
Savage has confidence born out of life experiences, including an injury that ended her career as a college water polo athlete. My sports injury changed my life,” she told me. “In my teens my dream was to make it to the Olympics. When I retired from water polo, I really struggled and I felt like I lost my purpose and pondered what was my ‘why.’ I wanted to be more intentional with the next chapter of my life, and build a deeper more connected mission for myself.”
She also said she was constantly told by her mom that everyone can accomplish anything they put their mind to. “If I can inspire other girls in tech, it’s all worth it,” she also told me.
P.S. For every student discouraged by a teacher, I have this small insight. In college, I got publicly berated for my writing by an English professor who later left the field to become a Buddhist priest—no kidding! Sometimes I think teachers and parents want us to be better at a skill so much that they resort to scaring us, as a misguided motivational tool. As I look back, the only true revenge for hurt feelings is to persevere and achieve.
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