2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Research shows that women constitute half the workforce in the U.S.; however, women only occupy about a quarter of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) jobs. In the last twenty years, many educators and researchers have worked to develop strategies and programs to increase the participation of women in STEM careers. Research shows that strategic intervention at the middle school-level can have great impacts on female students’ perspectives of careers in STEM fields. At Rowan University, the Society of Women Engineers: Engineers in Training (SWEET) Program, a program led by engineering faculty and the students of the university’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), was established to help redefine the role of women in STEM fields. Through a series of workshops, the SWEET Program exposed middle school-aged girls to the exciting and meaningful career possibilities in engineering from the perspectives of faculty, current students, and women in the industry.

Through the SWEET Program, workshop participants learned about what engineers do, what impact engineers can have on society, and what types of engineering work they could do in their future careers. Participants took part in two hands-on engineering projects during each workshop day, ranging from hydraulic bridges to polymer bouncy balls to magnetic-levitation trains. Workshop participants completed pre- and post-workshop surveys in order for the workshop leaders to gauge the background knowledge of the participants in engineering fields, as well as to determine what the participants learned during the workshop, what they enjoyed most about the workshop, and to gauge their interest in pursuing an education in engineering. During its pilot programming from summer 2021 to 2022, the SWEET Program hosted nine workshop days across four workshop periods with 123 total workshop participants in grades 6, 7, and 8. Based on the preliminary survey data collected, 94% of participants said they wished they learned more about topics such as engineering in their middle-school curriculum, and 95% of participants said the workshop content sparked their interest into the field of engineering. About 74% of participants said that after participating in the SWEET Program, they feel motivated to look further into pursuing engineering as a choice of study.