Hi Natalie. I entered engineering as a profession mainly due to my hobby interest in Amateur radio. I trained originally as a geologist and was quite dismayed on graduating to find many of the jobs in prospecting required electronics or physics degrees. I always had a keen interest in science and took Physics, Chemistry and Geography at A level back in the 1970s. I was part of a trial in 1972 for a subject called Project Technology at that time. It was only run for a year but I believe led eventually to CDT and similar technology subjects now offered.

The core issue is providing experience to youngsters at school of the fantastic range of well paid and interesting career paths in engineering. There's probably unintended bias by teaching staff to associate engineering careers as a choice for boys , not realising that it is just as suitable for girls. My experience with “career advice” at school was very negative and poor quality. I'm not sure if much has changed. It is much easier to research careers today with on line resources which should help schools provide high quality careers advice. Given that I was a budding engineer from a very early age better advice and encouragement from teachers would have greatly helped direct me sooner. I do not regret my experience as a geologist which is a wonderful science and does indeed incorporate much engineering knowledge.

There does seem to be some good role models for women in engineering if the IET magazine is to be believed. Before retiring I worked in IT with the NHS and it was about 50% female staff in IT and the culture was very inclusive in all aspects.

Possibly more opportunities for well structured work experience while at school will help bring more to the profession. I think hands on practical experience is superior to any amount of passive learning. Geology as a subject required a large element of practical field work with trips during the “holidays” taking 16 weeks during my degree studies. I suggest that other disaplines follow this example and provide much more practical experience. I studied evening classes in electronic servicing with the City and Guilds to enhance my hobby and this was very much a hands on learning experience. It resulted in working as an Avionics engineer showing there are other routes to a career in engineering. 

I think perhaps when we are younger we view learning as something you do at school or college. In fact what you learn at school or college is only the start and it is a continuous process that never stops even after retirement! In today's world there is so much choice of career path and it is daunting to decide and specialise at a young age, perhaps before we even know where our main interests and talents lie. It should be possible to have the choice of a broader science and engineering education to degree or technical equivalent level with taster options available to get hands on practical experience in various fields. 

Quite a ramble of perhaps slightly disconnected thoughts but may provide some food for thought in your quest.

Cheers Andy

Hello all. Whilst we do welcome and encourage an honest and frank exchange of views, may I please remind you to be civil and respectful of the opinions of others. 

Elizabeth Morgan: 
 

Hello all. Whilst we do welcome and encourage an honest and frank exchange of views, may I please remind you to be civil and respectful of the opinions of others. 

Hi Elizabeth

Totally agree. I was trying to reply to Rob Eagle but the post has been removed. I'm including my response as it does address his negative comments in a civil way.

The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) took a very different opinion to Rob Eagle when recruiting for Bletchley Park in 1938. GCHQ continues that tradition today, recognising that engineering excellence is not the preserve of a few white, middle-aged men. Without the success of Bletchley Park we may may all be living under a very different regime without our freedom.

We are in a global economy and to be successful need to inspire the next generation to consider science, engineering and technology as an exciting career option. This may be an obvious choice for some, especially if they have parents with a science or engineering background. We should not exclude other children from aspiring to become engineers and scientists just because of their personal circumstances, gender, race or other differences. Many successful people cite an inspirational teacher or mentor that put them on their path to a successful career. If we are to compete in the world then we need to encourage more youngsters in to engineering and that requires a cooperative effort to promote it. It will still be down to individual choice and ability at the end of the day but let's not handicap our profession by excluding all possible talent.

Andy

I think part of the reason that women aren't entering the profession starts such a young age. At school in the 90s, I was very interested in STEM topics and yet the career guidance I was given was to go into teaching, so I could teach STEM topics to others. It wasn't even suggested to me that I consider a STEM career myself! Until my late 20s, the only engineers I had heard of were people who came to fix the boiler or those who performed constant delays on train lines. I had no idea of the breadth of careers that engineering held. If I knew then what I know now, I'm sure I definitely would've considered engineering as a career path.

That said, there is a large number of women who are becoming more aware of engineering skills and engineering careers now that STEM is taking a bigger role in the school curriculum. Women who were not encouraged into STEM careers are now learning about STEM careers through their children. Unfortunately, many of these mothers (and fathers too) have no knowledge of or access to STEM topics themselves and are perhaps not best placed to encourage their children in these fields. Perhaps the IET could run more access courses for adults, rather than relying on growing the membership through a new generation of young graduates and apprentices. 

In this vein, there are many other talent pools that the IET could recruit from. The number of people leaving the teaching profession in huge, and many of those leaving may have advanced STEM skills bubbling under the surface that might need just the slightest nudge to switch careers - perhaps the IET could try recruiting in the NTU magazines with conversion/access courses? Same too for other female-dominant professions, such as nursing, which has a high number of educated, capable people, leaving in droves and looking for a change.

Andrew Ince: 
 

Elizabeth Morgan: 
 

Hello all. Whilst we do welcome and encourage an honest and frank exchange of views, may I please remind you to be civil and respectful of the opinions of others. 

Hi Elizabeth

Totally agree. I was trying to reply to Rob Eagle but the post has been removed. I'm including my response as it does address his negative comments in a civil way.

 

The poster mentioned expresses Twitter-length contrarian comments on a variety of issues. On another thread, he is currently casting doubt that anthropogenic CO2 emissions contribute to global warming, something that has been established science for 125 years. 

One should perhaps be aware of the existence of bots. I have been encountering them regularly on my excursions into Usenet and then Internet discussion groups for 35 years. They have been around since the late 1960's, but then until into the mid-1990's, when the WWW took off, they were mainly a matter of AI research. There are bots active in these forums also. Most forum bots are not very sophisticated.

Most of the important issues in this world cannot be effectively discussed in Twitter-length to's and fro's. The relative lack of women in engineering is one such.

I am not a “Bot”, I am an individual with an informed opinion.  Just because I don't agree with the current narrative on many issues does not mean I should be cancelled.

I don't agree with social engineering however well intentioned, it is discriminatory and may potentially lead to a lowering of standards which is not in the interests of our profession.  Also, I don't believe in spending billions of OUR tax money fighting climate change when realistically it will have absolutely no effect globally, yes, morally it is probably the right thing to do but unless there is a concerted global effort it is absolutely pointless and will impoverish us.

The world has changed since i entered engineering in the 1970s. To be attractive to teenagers today the option of engineering as a career needs to be clearly described as it is now. An 18 yr old girl i know has no interest at all in eng or tech beyond mobile phone and social media.  SChool failed to describe or enthuse her with an eng option. She is not unusual, so much depends on teachers own interests. We need to get interest going. Sort of thing that could inspire is engineers in games software development, or artificial intelligence, or practical hands on say heat pumps, green energy. 

There is also the way of thinking that is at the heart of the profession. I was trained as an elec eng, developed avionics, ran projects, managed sw dept, business development, business change consultancy. I approached all of these as a professional engineer, really using systems engineering ..hard and ,'soft'. However business, marketing, management, change management are not seen as engineering so for much of my career i felt the iet was focused heavily on the early years of a career..not me. Even though I was designing and implementing businesses using sys eng ideas and later business development with a strong sys eng focus on customer needs and so on as well as PM. The point here is that the principles of systems engineering can be widely applied and perhaps we need to find a way to be able to show the variety and scope of work possible in an engineers career..make it interesting, varied, show what it can lead to…Which makes me wonder about the scope of the IET…but most of all there is a selling job needed…to all teens ..on what is in offer in engineering and benefits to them..using todays world examples. Are young engineers hot on social media, of course they are, but i have not seen engineering influencers mentioned with millions of followers.

Longer reply than intended, I'm isolated with covid so had some time to spare.

Rob Eagle: 
 

I am not a “Bot”, I am an individual with an informed opinion.  

Your informed opinion on women in engineering is that

IET social engineering….. is becoming far too ‘Woke.’

Could you maybe explain

• having said this is “informed”, on what information this opinion is based? and
• what you mean by “Woke” in this context?

I don't agree with social engineering however well intentioned, it is discriminatory and may potentially lead to a lowering of standards which is not in the interests of our profession.  

Some of us have written that encouraging talented women into engineering will lead to a raising of standards. Can you address the arguments that have been made for that, to show how it would lead instead to a lowering of standards, as you claim?

 

Also, I don't believe in spending billions of OUR tax money fighting climate change 

This isn't a thread about climate change.

I was responding to your rather rude assertion that I was a “Bot”, an “unsophisticated” one at that, and yes, I stand by what I said, you can read whatever you like into it but nevertheless I stand by it.

To be really contentious, I tend to find that left leaning people, people who feel that they occupy the moral high ground, are the most intolerant of all, they have no regard towards other people's point of view and use whatever means they have to try to shut them down.