Women's unique challenges in the transitions to engineering work

Abstract

Significant research in the past few decades has documented the experiences and challenges that women in engineering face, not only in a professional setting but also as engineering students. However, few of these studies have reported on the transition from capstone training to engineering practice. Capstone is meant to prepare engineering students for the workplace by simulating engineering work, but this is not the same as preparing women for the (presumably) gendered experiences of engineering work. This study aims to answer the question: What unique challenges do women face in their first year of engineering work? We ask this question to make way for the question: What should women be prepared for in transitioning to engineering work? Participants for this study are drawn from a larger study of four universities across the United States. The total participant group used for this study included 45 engineering newcomers, 22 identified as female, and 23 identified as male on a screening questionnaire that included transgender, gender-nonconforming, and an option to skip the question. The data set included interviews with the participants conducted at three, six, and twelve months of work. Interviews were analyzed with multiple rounds of coding to determine which challenges articulated by participants were unique to women. Results indicate that women face many of the same challenges as men. Women also face a set of unique challenges, which were sometimes overtly rooted in sexism.