When I announced to my parents as a 17 year old that I
thought I wanted to be an engineer they were surprised. Not because they doubted
my capability but more due to the fact that I had never expressed an interest
in the field before. In fact, I was vehemently set against the idea. You see, I
come from a family of engineers. My father is a chemical engineer and for as
long as I can remember all my brother (who is 4 years my elder) wanted to be
when he grew up was an engineer. So yes, my resistance was partially driven by
the fact I didn’t want to be seen to be taking the easy path by simply
following in the family tradition but there was more to it than just that.
As a child I was not restricted by gender stereotypes in
anyway. I was the ultimate tomboy, a trait my family fully embraced. I was more
likely to be found playing with an action man than a barbie (although to be
honest dolls of any kind weren’t really my thing!), while trips to Santa’s
grotto would somehow involve the very loud specifications that I was a 6 year
old ‘who loves playing with boy’s toys’ to tip off the unsuspecting elves that
the blue parcel might be more appropriate. I envisioned myself becoming many
things in my future but never thought of myself as an engineer.
For me it was nothing directly to do with gender per se, I
never once thought I couldn’t be an engineer because I was female. Being in the
minority has never been something which phased me and I will certainly never
let it influence my decisions. The barrier to picturing myself in a hard hat or
working on a computer design was not the perceived masculinity of the role or
the academic challenges it may pose but more the skill set I thought it
entailed, a skill set I believed I was lacking. You see, my brother grew up
building things. Lego, Kinex, Lincoln logs - you name it, he had it. He loved
everything about designing and creating and could spend hours and hours on end
working on his masterpieces. It was often said by those who knew him that he
was born to be an engineer.
As a young girl I quickly realised I was nothing like my
brother. I never expressed such interests or aptitudes and so never thought
engineering would be for me. Not because I wasn’t encouraged or exposed to such
activities but quite frankly because I never found them stimulating. If
something broke, I wasn’t rushing to try and fix it and I certainly never
popped the car bonnet to have a look at the engine. Yet, even though I did none
of these things when I was a child as I have progressed through my studies I
have realised that I too was born with an engineering mind and maybe as a
youngster I simply did not display my aptitude so clearly.
I believe that engineering in its essence centres on
‘logical problem solving’, which does not always manifest itself in hands on
activities that are often associated with the career, but rather in more subtle
ways. Of course when a child spends their time dismantling things and
re-building them it almost waves a red flag for the parents that engineering
might be a suitable future career option, but sometimes these skills can be
more subtle and particularly in the case of girls, harder to spot.
As a youngster I almost never remember building or fixing
something. Instead I loved puzzles, riddles and just about anything that made
me think. Even better if the game didn’t have a single right answer, but rather
required you to reason and justify your solution. As an 8 year old I could beat
anyone young or old in the traffic jam logic game “Rush Hour”, in my early teens
I was a whizz at Sodoku and most recently the Rubik’s cube has caught my
attention. However on top of these interests I still played sport, read books
and generally had many other hobbies which often overshadowed those problem
solving skills. As a result I was never characterised as a budding engineer
like my brother. A scientist, lawyer and even a journalist were mentioned, but
not an engineer.
This I believe is where gender plays a role in the number of
girls choosing to study engineering at third level. Not for the traditionally
spouted reason of engineering being seen as a male-dominated career, but rather
due to the gender disparity in the identification of the skill sets of our
young people. There is no single subject on a school report card that will
straight away alert a parent or student to an aptitude for engineering (while a
talent for maths is important, engineering requires much more than just
numeracy skills). If a student gets an A in accounting the business, economics
and accounting opportunities will straight away be highlighted, good grades in
chemistry and biology might encourage students into medical sciences, a prowess
for english could lead to journalism and so such links can continue for many university degree’s.
Engineering is not so simple. It is often not what is done
in the classroom that is the best indication of engineering talent, it is the
way a student thinks and approaches problems that is key. The ability to
identify these skills in a student seems to correlate with gender far too often,
with girls more than capable of becoming fantastic engineers slipping through
the net almost unnoticed because they demonstrate these strengths in a more
understated way than their male counterparts. Yet if someone might have said to
them “you think like an engineer” everything could have been different. Because
after all, no one said that to me – and I very nearly missed my calling.
Aisling won the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2006 with her project entitled 'The development and evaluation of a biological food spoilage indicator.' She later placed 3rd in the EU Contest for Young Scientists with this project while representing Ireland in the competition. In 2014 she graduated from University College Dublin with a first class honours bachelors degree in Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering. She is currently studying for a masters in Biochemical Engineering in University College London. Aisling has long championed the involvement of Women in STEM, having written a guest column for Ireland's leading Tech and Innovation site, Silicon Republic on her thoughts on the matter.
