Women made up 54 percent of the undergraduate engineering graduates at Dartmouth College this week, a record majority among national research universities. Of 119 graduates, 64 were female.
Thayer School of Engineering Dean Joseph J. Helble said in the university’s announcement that, “We’ve been able to attract more students, and especially women, by letting them use engineering to solve real-world challenges. They quickly learn how their creativity and engineering skills can make a real difference.”
Women comprised 48 percent of the class of 2016 majoring in engineering at Dartmouth’s Thayer School, according to a feature story from the university last year. This was up from the 31 percent average of female engineering majors in the Bachelor of Arts degree or the 27 percent female engineering majors in the Bachelor of Engineering degree over the past decade.
Nationally, women have made up 19 percent of American students graduating from an undergraduate engineering program in the last decade.
The feature from Dartmouth acknowledges that an engineering student graduating in 2017 is “likely to enter an engineering workforce that skews heavily toward men.”
Professor Myron Tribus said that word of mouth is bringing more women to the program; alumni or friends are noticing the way the program is “consciously focusing on the things that are appealing and intriguing to them.”
“People told me when I was in high school that engineering is a male-dominated field, but at Dartmouth I haven’t felt out of place at all,” said Meredith Gurnee, class of 2017. “It is super exciting to see women pursing this path.”
Within Thayer, beginner-level classes and the Women in Science Project have enabled more women to thrive in the program. The project-based class titled Introduction for Engineering gives beginners – of any gender – foundational knowledge. Additionally, the Women in Science Project, founded in 1990, is a network that helps women get internships in research labs. Thayer also offers summer workshops for high school students.