Black Women May Face Unique Barriers to Obtaining STEM Degrees – The Ticker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Why is it hard to get students into the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines? What is it about some disciplines in STEM which is unattractive especially to women and certain minorities?
I find this information very interesting. It bothers me that black women do not carry out the career path in STEM when so many start out as wanting to pursue some type of job in science, technology, engineering, and math. Even though I am a criminal justice major I am a very big advocate for women in the STEM program. I work at an all-girls math and science camp every summer to promote interest in math and science for future generations. Like the head of the camp always tells the girls, the cure for cancer may lay in the mind of one of the girls in that very camp and it just hasn’t been brought to the surface yet. This is so very true, if one girl has the cure to cancer in her mind but she does not believe she can go forth with a future in STEM then we have just lost a brilliant mind in the science world. This goes with minorities as well, no one should feel like they can’t pursue a dream in the STEM field. It is very achievable and no one should tell them otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI think it's weird that minorities, ethnically and gender-wise, don't follow through with a degree in a STEM field if they begin studying one. It's true that there are a lot of white men in these fields, particularly in schools in the U.S., but sometimes being a minority is an advantage, as most schools want to increase the amount of minorities they have. Unless there are other factors that contribute to women, black women in particular for this article, that would prevent them from continuing on in a STEM field, I would think that they have somewhat of an advantage when trying to get into certain programs.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Catie's comment, I believe minority groups have an advantage in entering these programs. It may be a possibility that the incentives given are not as motivating as you would think. Because some students are not forced to pay for their education it becomes easier to slack off since the money isn't coming out of their own pockets.
DeleteI think Samantha's post was an interesting take on this information. At first, I was thinking I wonder how they would study the reasons there are lower amounts of black women following through with their STEM programs, but then I realized the studies should be centered around keeping them in the programs. They should be trying to provide incentives to keep any minority man or women in the STEM programs. As Catie mentioned it is usually an advantage when applying to certain programs, so you think more people would be going through the STEM programs to take advantage of this fact.
ReplyDeleteIt may be difficult to get students into STEM disciplines because these types of degrees require some of the more advanced classes compared to others, which may not make for the ideal "college experience." Some of these disciplines may also be more unattractive to women because they are male dominated fields, which can be intimidating to a woman trying to advance in that area of work.
ReplyDeleteI think that one problem is intimidation. The reason i say this is that for a very long time this is been a predominately male discipline. There is always going to be a lot of pressure on those going into this let alone being a minority. Especially with scarcity of jobs and the unknown of the opportunities that these woman could obtain. I think the biggest problem is that there isn't enough information on how these woman should go about these careers and the woman could be hesitant because this is something completely new. People tend to stay in their comfort zone and want to be sure of the chances that they will have in their career and thats why its hard to take a chance.
ReplyDeleteI think STEM can seem like an intimidating field to get into. Usually people in these types of careers are under a lot of pressure to do things the right way. Another factor that may cause intimidation is the fact the field is fairly new and constantly changing. New discoveries are made in science and technology all the time that sometimes change the way that things work. It is hard to anticipate these changes so people may be reluctant to enter the field in the first place.
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