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Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Makeup of typical engineering departments.

(OP)
Just curious.

What is the percentage of women to men in your engineering department/group?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
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RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

It is exactly 50/50 in mine.

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

2 of 20, 10%

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

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RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Zero for 3 now --- at one time it was 1/3

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

3 of 10
or
6 of 13 counting reception, accounting, marketing

 

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Minus the admin, we have 3 women engineers and approx. 20 males, so ~15%.

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Was 2/15 now down 1/14, word by the water cooler is it will go back up to 2/15

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

20/250, or 8%..


"Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?" Oddball, "Kelly's Heros" 1970

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RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

0 for 12.  I don't think we've ever had a female engineer in our division.  Hell, it's hard enough to find men who want to work in this industry.

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Zero % here.  What has happened in my industry is that when we do get a female in the door, she works as an engineer for less than 1 year and then sent out to become a marketter or business development.  Then in about 2 years they leave.  Why do they leave?  I've only heard of maybe 20% go "back" to engineering.....

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

0 for 60 these days (software engineering), although we do heve one female in tech support.  When I was at the sharp end of engineering (burned fingers etc), 1 for 20.

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

At our place it can get confusing who's an engineer and who's a scientist but women are definitely in the minority.

I can think of 2 actual female engineers.  Probably about 30+ engineers in total.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

6 out of 18.

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Our experience matches dcasto.  The few female engineers that have been brought in generally haven't stayed in engineering for long (either left the company or moved to another department).

We have about 100 engineers.  We have brought in about 25 new graduate engineers in the last 5 years (during which time we probably lost 30 engineers for various reasons).  

About 8 of those new 25 engineers were woman and about 4 of them are left.  Of the 75 or so in engineering more than 5 years, none are women.



=====================================
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RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

1 for 15

And there in lies the rub

Kevin

“It is a mathematical fact that fifty percent of all doctors graduate in the bottom half of their class." ~Author Unknown

"If two wrongs don't make a right, try three." ~Author Unknown

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

0 for 6 (engineers and drafters)...

Kind of depressing really...

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

3 for about 60 for engineers company wide, although one is a Sr. Engineer and PM.

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

3 of about 30 at this facility.  All process engineers.  Two new ones are hiring in this summer.  One starts today!

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

(OP)
Thanks for the stats guys/gals. I appreciate the snapshots.

It seem like structural (I am just going by the industry everyone has beside their handle) is the most integrated at 50/50 and 6/18. And the rest is really far behind.

Oh, at my current place, also 0%.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
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RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

"Behind"?  Is there a reason that you believe that there MUST be a 50/50 split?

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

(OP)
No offense. It's a form of expression.

I can also say, structural seems to be far ahead?

With regards to the target value, yes, I am using 50/50. No reason. Just a target.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
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RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

You could use that same arguement (target value of 50/50) for the nursing occupation.

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

(OP)
monkeydog,

That sounds like a good topic for a "New" posting?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
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RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

I would think that a more appropriate target would be the split in university. My graduating year we had 3 women in a ME class of about 25, or about 12 percent. Seems to reflect in the workplace...(but that was a long time ago...)

I don't see how you could ever have 50/50 in the workplace if schools are not graduating 50/50.

"Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?" Oddball, "Kelly's Heros" 1970

Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of the Eng-Tips Forums.
 

 
 

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

When I was in school Chem Eng had far more girls than any other discipline through the different years.  I've been told that civil is starting to get more and more with most of the girls going into civil/enviro.

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

National Academy of Engineering has on their website that there are 9% women engineers in USA and 20% of egr degrees earned by women in USA.

It doesn't say if the 20% is historic or if it has increased a lot in the last generation so i wouldn't walk away with the interpretation that 50% of women can't get work with their degrees.  perhaps, the actual employed will go up but always be behind the school number for a time lag.

The point the NAE is pushing is to increase the 20% to 50% by encouraging girls to pursue engineering careers and promoting engineering as a gender neutral career.  Obviously, they're doing a great job at it since the engineering community (you) doesn't know it's going on. :)    

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Just realised if you include the software people that gets a few more females, bunch more males too though so doesn't affect the % much, might make it over 10.

I don't see why any push to make any career 50/50.

So long as there isn't any kind of rules or effort to actually keep any gender disparity then what career different sexes choose should be left up to them.

Now I know not having many colleagues the same sex might put people off a career but where do we stop?

Didn't the Supreme court just make a ruling on positive discrimination?

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

it's not positive discrimination to encourage girls to pursue careers in science. Devil's adv. position would say "i don't see any reason why it's not 50/50".  I'll give some points up on family stuff on the career side of the issue, but there are more women in college than men. What are they studying?

if you're talking about gender-based public funded scholarships its another thing altogether. Likewise with gender-based enrollment priority in public colleges.  
When you finally get around to looking for money to go to college, you've already gone considerably down the path and will probably work something out (and if you can't needs based is still there).

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

(OP)
Hi Guys. I think a separate post on what the percentage of women in engineering should be would be a great one!

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
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RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

6/49 (mech dept)
14/121 company wide

0/24 EE & only 1/14 I&CE

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

In my immediate group, 67%

In all of R&D it drops to something like 15-20%

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

(OP)
Hi Bruno,

What does your immediate group do - if it is not proprietary?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
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RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

3 of 10 here either engineers or on engineering track (still in school or EIT).  Used to be just one.  All three managers are male.

We're structural, but on the construction/fabrication side.  Over on the design side, much more women.

Hg

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RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

3 out of 30 here.  Does anyone else get the impression that the reason for the push to attract more women and minorities to the profession is to increase the supply of engineers in order to supress wages?  Why else?  

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Graybeach,
I've never felt that way or experienced anyone else sharing that opinion.

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Equal opportunity for equal ability ???

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

I've always assumed that graybeach's argument was at least part of the reason.

In the UK at least engineering recruitment is heavily pushed by the universities, the more people they can get out of low paying Arts courses into big ticket itmes like Med and Eng, the more money they make per student.

Or is that cynical?

Cheers

Greg Locock

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RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

You cynical Greg, never.

At my last place in the UK we had 0 female Engineers but did have a female document controller and a female project acountant who were technically part of the Design Office so with a total staff of low double figures we had about 20%.

Last I heard they had actually recruited a female engineer, but they lost the project accountant before I left so still only around 20%.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

It's about 40 W : 60 M where I am.

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

I feel like posting another politically incorrect couple of thoughts.

We still haven't cleared up why we should (should we?) aim for 50/50.

Is there anything "unfair" in a 10/90 women/men ratio? As long as the percentage of women employed = the percentage of women who apply for jobs (assuming everyone is equally qualified), nothing is unfair. We would not employ female engineers out of some kind of pity, while they could have been lawyers and made much more money, would we? smile

I guess more women means more diversity (at least as long as the percentage << 50%), assuming diversity is a good think we would want to have more women, but who says 50/50 is the optimum ratio in an engineering dept?

I guess male engineers would also be interested in seeing more women around for less politically correct (biological) reasons (after all even engineers are only humans and therefore animals) but in that case again why 50/50 and not something like 90/10?

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

I agree with epoisses hence my own politically incorrect statement.  By the way, I am a "poster woman engineer." My mug is on our company recruitment poster!

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Tut Tut epoisses & graybeach , the OP made it clear when they told me off that they don't want this post to go in this direction.smile

thread730-193099: Men/Women Staying in Engr, maybe we're the fools may be more appropriate but even there some people will get upset by these kind of opinions.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Due to cultural and biologic differences between men and women we still are a male society. To catch the vote of women (which are the majority in the world)politics and parties tend to demagogically introduce women quotes in governments as an example for civil society. So what will happen? If it is a problem of quotes and not of competences we will risk having 50% of competent women a 50% of competent men out of the quotes.

regards

luis

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

Ohh you "guys" are in trouble.
I got told to "stay on topic" also.  This is a powder keg waiting to blow.

RE: Makeup of typical engineering departments.

(OP)
Thank you monkeydog for trying to keep the replies on track with the OP.

As indicated above, opinions, comments and reasons on what the ideal split is, why, and etc, are probably best served in the other thread:

Men/Women Staying in Engr, maybe we're the fools
thread730-193099: Men/Women Staying in Engr, maybe we're the fools

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
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