There was a college I almost went to, until I realized that their physics and chemistry departments each had one or two women among 30 profs and that when they bragged of how many women were in science, they didn't mention that most of them were in nursing and I just...decided I didn't want to deal with that.
I don't blame you. I mean, mechanical engineering isn't exactly the most...welcoming (?) place for women. But my advisor is female and she's just plain awesome. And the department is really trying to make it more appealing to women, in the "hey! This stuff is cool! Try it! You can totally do it!" sense. It has the unfortunate stereotype of being the "frat boy major", but I'm really happy to say that I'm seeing more and more of the pretty much polar opposite type in my classes (the geeky, hair-cut-short-and-dyed, I'm-going-to-play-with-explosives-I-mean-Coffeemate girls).
That doesn't mean I don't spend time rolling my eyes and asking "did you really just say that? Did you? Did you have to say that? *thwap*"
And I don't know how much of that is common elsewhere, but racial relations just felt different there than other places I've been.
I don't know either. I mean, where I am at now is pretty skewed, because it feels pretty diverse. But then again, there are a LOT of colleges around here, and I feel I'm dealing more with classism and that ilk.
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I don't blame you. I mean, mechanical engineering isn't exactly the most...welcoming (?) place for women. But my advisor is female and she's just plain awesome. And the department is really trying to make it more appealing to women, in the "hey! This stuff is cool! Try it! You can totally do it!" sense. It has the unfortunate stereotype of being the "frat boy major", but I'm really happy to say that I'm seeing more and more of the pretty much polar opposite type in my classes (the geeky, hair-cut-short-and-dyed, I'm-going-to-play-with-explosives-I-mean-Coffeemate girls).
That doesn't mean I don't spend time rolling my eyes and asking "did you really just say that? Did you? Did you have to say that? *thwap*"
And I don't know how much of that is common elsewhere, but racial relations just felt different there than other places I've been.
I don't know either. I mean, where I am at now is pretty skewed, because it feels pretty diverse. But then again, there are a LOT of colleges around here, and I feel I'm dealing more with classism and that ilk.