Last year, I volunteered for an event that was designed to showcase various engineering disciplines to a group of young girls from at-risk communities to show them all the possibilities that engineering could offer as a career. I gave the introduction to the event, and I was encouraged to go into why I picked engineering as my major of choice when I went to college, among other things. As I was putting my presentation together, it made me realize that I hadn’t really ever given it much thought beyond “I like solving problems.” It always seemed like a natural choice. Actually, when I asked my mom why she thought I picked engineering, she said “I don’t think you picked it as much as it picked you.”

So now I was curious, were there other factors at play here?

When I look back on my childhood, I recognize early on that I wasn’t forced exclusively into traditional stereotypes. I took dance lessons as well as joined a variety of sports teams. I had American Girl dolls and Barbies and play houses, and my brother had train sets and tools and a battery-powered kid-sized dump truck that you could drive in, but no one batted an eye when we played with everything equally (you better believe I loved that dump truck).

When it came to math and science homework, if there was a problem I was having trouble with, my mom would teach me how to walk through it and parse it down into smaller parts that I could solve individually and then go back and figure out how it all fit together. She claimed it was because she wouldn’t even begin to know how to help me with math homework so she needed to teach me how to help myself, but how to work through complex problems is exactly the skill that engineers use the most. And I was encouraged to approach all subjects in school with equal attention and creativity. Eventually I was giving extra to all of the projects I could for my own satisfaction more than anything else.

When I would spend time at my grandparents’ house, I was giving the same kind of attention to the projects I would help with there. My grandmother would give me piano lessons (“Each note deserves the full amount of time that it asks for,” would be the instruction I would get after rushing off of a run of notes) or encourage me to play with the Lego bricks or Lincoln Logs or Tinker Toys that were stacked in the cabinet. My grandpa would have me help him test the water in the pool to determine what combination of chemicals would needed to be added (and access to the pool was tied to a very strict “Only with adults on the deck” rule) or tend to the vegetable garden. He was an engineer himself, so he approached everything very methodically and logically, and I’m sure it rubbed off on me without me even realizing it given the amount of time I’d spend with them.

My parents were both working parents, which I’ve come to realize is also a big influencer. They worked very different schedules, and my mom switched to part time to be there for more childhood events while my dad worked nights and evenings. When their work schedules overlapped, I was watched by my grandparents, and when it was just my mom we would go to each other’s after school activities so that she could watch us both. My brother and I were both in scouts, so it often meant joint scouting events. While I can’t remember how often my brother was brought to my events, I remember being brought to a lot of his. It often meant I was the only young girl there, and my parents would argue adamantly that I be allowed to participate in some of the activities, although they would lose some of those battles either due to a “lack of resources” or simply because I was a girl. Those were some of the few times as a child I can remember my gender being a factor in being told “no.” I often did some of the Boy Scout stuff anyway, thanks to the insistence of my parents, and I would frequently insert myself into my brother’s boxcar construction.

When it came time to start thinking of what I would do in college, I actually originally wanted to do music. I was pretty decent at the flute, so in my middle school years that was my intended path. I didn’t fully understand for a long time that my grandpa was an engineer, so for a long time I didn’t know that was a path that even existed. But come high school, I was enrolled into a STEM focused program in addition to my normal humanities studies. I wanted to do the program because it sounded challenging and different and like I could be good at it, and after some entry tests I was the only one of my circle of friends who got in. It was both of those things for sure, and it was hard to balance my social life with the new responsibilities, but thanks to a heavier emphasis on tech and math, I was exposed to the greater possibilities of what I could aim for. Music was and still is a huge part of my life, but I was also learning now that I was enjoying problem solving, scientific research, and new technologies.

I remember when the idea of being an engineer actually clicked. One day in high school, around when they started encouraging us to think about college and career planning, I came home and said “I know like puzzles and problem solving. Is there a major I can go into that focuses on that?” My mom replied, “You know, your grandfather was an engineer, and that’s a lot of what his job dealt with.” And it just made sense. Bam. Decided. Mechanical engineers are taught how to deal with all kinds of problems, big and small. There was no doubt I’d find out what it is I’d love to do if I studied that.

How does my childhood experience fit into the prevailing research into the gender gap in STEM professions? Pretty well, when I compare them side-by-side. To start with, it’s almost universally acknowledged that we need to start the encouragement at a young age.

In a 2010 study performed by the AAUW, stereotype threat and implicit bias were identified as two threats to the education of young children and equal encouragement of genders in being comfortable with STEM subjects. They also found that simply by teaching girls a growth mindset, the idea that intelligence is acquired and developed instead of static, when it comes to math and science skills (and basically any skill) it boosts.

An NAE study performed in 2008 also points out that simply making the effort to share with kids who engineers are and what kinds of things they do can make an impact in their interest. In the report summary, the NAE recommends that engineers start conversations with young people and encourage them to explore engineering “by appealing to their desire to find hands-on solutions to problems that can make a difference in the world and improve people’s lives.”

A Girl Scouts Research Institute report from 2012 offers numbers that reinforce this need to bring greater awareness of engineering to younger children. In focus groups and surveys of girls across the country, 74% were interested in STEM subjects. Of those 74%, 81% said they were interested in STEM fields as a career. The top 5 career motivators that girls interested in STEM reported were Helping People, Making a Difference in the World, Helping Those who are Less Fortunate, Having input into how the job is done, and Making a lot of money. But when reporting their careers of interest, Medicine/Healthcare, Arts/Design, Social Science, and Entertainment came out on top. Engineering ended up coming in at 11th place on the list of careers. For some reason, a lot of girls who are interested in STEM stop short of thinking of it as a viable career choice, be it because of persistent gender stereotypes or because they don’t think you can help people and make a difference through engineering.

I found all of this research fascinating, especially as I take up a position as a co-chair of this year’s engineering exposure event. I will do my best to continue to try to improve the image of engineering by being a vocal advocate of what a cool profession it is!