The engineering field at the University of Wyoming has a male majority in its student body. Currently only 18 percent of the undergraduates in the College of Engineering are women.
The United States Department of Labor confirms that most teachers, nurses and caretakers in the U.S. right now are women, whereas most engineers, truck drivers and construction workers are men.
Incorporating more diversity into the workforce is imporant in today’s society. The University of Wyoming has put into place a program to help increase the number of women in the engineering field.
The mentor program for engineering first came up in 2016 at the Martin Luther King dialogue talks. The engineering department has not normally been a part of these talks, until last year. These talks helped start a dialogue about how to better help underrepresented groups on campus.
Project Coordinator Teddi Hofmann, felt that because she is a woman in the Counseling department for the College of Engineering, that targeting female students in the college would be a good place to start.
“Because I’m a female and I have a background in science, that targeting the female population would be kind of a low hanging fruit,” Hofmann said.
Hofmann is working with other women mentors who have graduated from the College of Engineering to help guide female students in the program right now. With it being only its first year on campus, the Mentor program is a relatively small one at the moment; however, Hofmann hopes that it will grow in the coming years.
Reenu Paul is studying to become an electrical engineer and is a mentee in the program and thinks it really helps. Last year, she joined the mentor program to get a better idea of what life will be like in the workplace.
“It can be kind of detering when you’re in a class of 40 people with two other girls, and it can be kind of challenging with that ratio so that’s why I think it would be beneficial for girls to have a female mentor.”
Paul believes that talking to someone who has traveled down the same path she has makes the mentor easier to relate to and easier to take advice from.
“You have your goals in your head but when you talk about it with a mentor it just becomes more real,” Paul said.
With opportunities like these for young women on campus, UW is working towards a more integrated campus and community.
Paul intends to come back after she graduates and work as a mentor for the program.
“I would love to! You just want to have the opportunity to also give after you’ve taken, and I hope I can do that.”
