Group Actions
Engagement
  • Author Author: Catwell
  • Date Created: Date Created
  • Views 567 views
  • Likes 0 likes
  • Comments 2 comments
Related
Recommended

Women mentors of STEM

Catwell

image

Connecting girls with women mentors in the STEM fields (via HuffingtonPost)

 

Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, is one of the most successful and influential women in business. She made her way through Harvard then Google, before ending up at the booming social media company Facebook. She has written a book trying to inspire women to take on more challenges and change their mindset about their role and potential in the corporate world.

 

Ending up in the high places is hard enough, but women in the STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) are almost as rare. Just 24% of people in the STEM workforce are women according to the Association for Women in Science. Many agree, it is nearly impossible to be successful, learning and working on your own. And it can be especially tough for girls to pursue careers in the STEM field without following the example of a role model who have succeeded in that path. Sandberg herself relied on economist Larry Summers to lead her through her latter years at Harvard.

 

Popular news outlets, especially those online, have a huge reach and a voice that is heard by many. The people at the Huffington Post have realized they can use this vast reach to connect women mentors that are successful in the STEM field and “mentees” aspiring to do the same.

 

HuffPost believes that simply connecting girls with women working in their field of interest is the main importance. The program took girls or ages 14 to 21 and connected them with a mentor. How the relationship developed was up to the mentor and mentee. HuffPost did not impose any sort of curriculum or time commitment but said the general program would be over by the end of April, 2013. Pairs can continue to email, video chat or even get together to learn more about each other, share inspirations, aspirations, experiences, knowledge and develop a lasting relationship if they chose to do so.

 

The program which started late in 2012, was very popular and received 1,000 mentee applications and although over 300 STEM women stepped up to meet demand, there was an obvious lack of mentors. Surely HuffPost will try doing this again.

 

The online newspaper also set up a section dedicated to girls in STEM aimed towards sharing experiences, blogs, and news about women in the STEM fields. Though women write most entries, there are some gentlemen sharing their thoughts and experiences with the very important issue of female participants in STEM.

 

In the “Girls in STEM” page, we get to meet a few of the mentors who took on the challenge of inspiring a young one. One of these mentors is Cheryl Platz, a User Experience Designer currently working for Microsoft in their Server and Tools division. In a blog entry on the page, Platz explains what her title entails,  “We go by many names -- interaction designers, user experience designers, human-computer interaction specialists -- but our work is the same. We use the principles of computer science and cognitive psychology to first work through a problem and then design an aesthetically pleasing solution to the problem.”

 

A wide range of interests are represented in the program. Women working as editors, educators, entrepreneurs, engineers, students and many other occupations are involved. Paula Kerger, President and CEO of PBS participated as well as Emilie Reas, a neuroscience PhD student with a background in biology, psychology and chemistry. Reas is fascinated by learning how the human brain and mind work and she currently studies human memory with fMRI. How awesome does that sound?

 

Although there are other programs to help young students find mentors like MentoNet, this program is focused on inspiring females. Check out HuffPost’s “Girls in STEM” at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/girls-in-stem.

 

C

More news at:

http://twitter.com/Cabe_e14

  • in reply to DAB

    Statistically speaking, women are becoming the more employable in most categories. In fact, I know many guy’s who’s significant other is the only one working. That being said, someone has to take over the more complicated roles in engineering… So, this STEM program will help create the developers of the future.

    C

  • While I appreciate the added value of women mentoring women, I think that they are relying too much on that approach.

     

    There are many issues within the STEM environment that men are perfectly capable of helping women understand so that they can fit into the job market without introducing any sexist bias.

     

    I have seen a lot of women fail, just because they would not believe that a man could understand their problem.  This attitude was unfortunate as I saw many otherwise capable women self destruct in the engineering environment.

     

    I have successfully mentored men and women in the engineering environment and assisted them in understanding all of the aspects of the job, not just the technical issues.

     

    So from my perspective, anyone, male or female, who wishes to enter into the STEM fields should take whatever mentoring advice that they can find.  You can never have too much knowledge, but you do have to be adaptable to the many demands placed upon you in the job place.

     

    For the record, if there is a grand male conspiracy to handicap women in the work place, I was never informed about it.

     

    In my experience, everyone gets an equal opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.  Being told that you are not yet ready for a promotion should create an environment where you try to find out what you need to do better for the next opportunity.

     

    Automatically pulling the sex card is not the appropriate response.  Yes sometimes it is true, but you can only pull that card once in an organization before you have to leave for other opportunities.  It should always be the last resort, not an instant response.  You should always seek a second opinion about your capabilities from someone you trust before you react to a disappointing incident.

     

    There are many old and wise engineers in any organization.  Most will freely help anyone who asks.  Give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised how much an old engineer can teach you about navigating the corporate structure.

     

    Just my opinion,

    DAB