Over 200 female honor roll students from elementary, middle and high schools learned about engineering through hands-on workshops and met with professional female engineers and students at Cal State Long Beach’s engineering quad on Friday for the eighth annual “Women Engineers @ the Beach” conference.
“The ‘Women Engineers @ the Beach’ educational conference exclusively serves female students greatly in part to the severe under representation of women in the discipline,” said Lily Gossage, the principal organizer of the event.
The workshop allowed students to ask questions to the keynote speaker, high-ranking rocket scientist Laurel Gutierrez, and engage with female engineering students as they split in groups and worked with women from different schools.
The groups were sent to two awareness workshops to explore different branches in engineering, from aerospace to civil engineering and mechanical to electrical engineering.
Students got the opportunity to participate in activities that included learning how to make slime, stomp rockets, foil boats and paper towers.
“In engineering, most of the things we build are too complicated to work alone, so it is important to work together as a team,” said Gutierrez.
This approach in teaching shows that students absorb more information when they actively engage and discover information, according to Gossage.
“Engineering is about designing solutions for something that needs to be solved,” said Forouzan Golshani, Dean of the College of Engineering.
“Women are great in design and have improved all fields substantially.”
The women were able to team up and collaborate with one another, providing a climate of camaraderie that is both encouraging and emotionally rewarding, Gossage said.
“It sends the message that there are others who enjoy what you enjoy,” said Gossage.
The workshop is sponsored by the CSULB chapter of the Society of Women Engineers, which receives co-sponsorship funds from various engineering societies such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
While the student chapter of the Society of Women Engineers continues to increase in membership, the overall increase of females in the professional field are undersized.
According to the Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, women comprise about 14 percent of the engineering workforce.
The lack of females in engineering has much to with gender roles in society, as parents, teachers and adult role models need to shed the mindset that continues to pivot along gender lines, according to Gossage.
“In a typical childhood play, parents are more apt to purchase a doll for their daughter and Legos for their son,” Gossage said. “Reverse this practice, and we will see more women engineers in the years to come.”
For this reason, she created the program exclusively for females and worked with Golshani to help increase enrollment of female students in the male-dominated field.
Gossage said, “I am hoping that outreach programs such as this will usher in a world where women are just as heavily represented in engineering as are the men.”
