MILWAUKEE (AP) - A summer program in Milwaukee aims to draw more females into the male dominated field of engineering.
Marquette University’s Women in Electrical Engineering summer program has a group of middle school girls who have opted to spend part of their summer break in classrooms and labs in Milwaukee to study engineering, Milwaukee Public Radio (https://bit.ly/2skoVp0 ) reported.
Claire Kasier is an incoming freshman at Hamilton High School in Sussex. The program offers a different environment from other engineering classes she’s taken where there are few girls, she said.
Kasier decided to participate in the program to learn more about different types of engineering.
“Because I have a lot of an interest in engineering I thought it would be fun to learn about electrical because it’s a field I’ve considered going in to,” she said.
Women make up only 15 percent of the engineering field, said Kristen Seashore, section president of the Society of Women Engineers Wisconsin.
“One of the challenges that we see is traditionally girls when they’re younger around the age of six and seventh grade is when they start to lose interest in math and science 7/8- the physical sciences,” Seashore said.
The girls enrolled at Marquette’s summer program are right around that age.
Maggie Weglarz, a junior at Marquette studying bioelectrical engineering, is working with the program.
“I really enjoy working with circuits and working with young girls because I really had, I mean I had my science and math classes, but I didn’t ever do any engineering camps and I think this is a really good opportunity for them to be exposed to engineering at an early age so they know at least a little bit,” Weglarz said.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Milwaukee Area Technical College also have similar summer engineering programs for girls.
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Information from: Wisconsin Public Radio, https://www.wpr.org
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