"Male-dominated" university courses

[Bathroomwoes]

My cousin has received an offer through clearing of civil engineering at a good university, as well as a joint honours degree of maths and economic at a different, similarly-ranked university. She thinks she'd find civil engineering more interesting and is worried about doing a joint degree and also concerned about finding maths too hard or dry.

However, she's getting loads of people putting her off civil engineering, saying it is too male-dominated and involves a lot of travel i.e. not a good career for having a family. She is family-orientated so this is important to her but my feeling is that too much emphasis is being put on a potential career work-life balance that is 15 off years away!

Any thoughts on civil engineering as a degree for a woman and on future career options, both in and out of civil engineering? I would have thought that sort of degree would lend itself to many different types of jobs? And I don't know anything about the subject other than the wiki introduction but it sounds quite interesting?! More than maths!

too much emphasis is being put on a potential career work-life balance that is 15 off years away!

My thoughts exactly. Is she surrounded with people who think a woman`s place is in the home?

Engineering is full of men. Thats why its so well paid. Tell her to save up and she can take a career break.

I did a male dominated degree. Struggled to get a job because offices full of men didn’t want to hire a woman who would spoil the vibe and prevent them having lad banter.

She should do what she enjoys doing. Not because in X years time she may be able to have a child

The current urge to increase women's participation in STEM subjects can lead to women being welcomed and celebrated.
Lots of the engineering prizes in University I'm associated with go to women.
In all kinds of engineering. They also have good post grad employment.

If you can hack being in a minority, and love the subject, go for it!

She should absolutely do the one she's most interested by. I did a related course, and had friends on engineering courses who were often one of only a couple of girls. I've been the only woman in a class. As a result I get on very well with men, and have quite a high-paying career.

I've not really had any difficulty with working in male-dominated jobs, the men I've worked with have been, by and large, very respectful of my expertise, we get on well, we joke together. Not an issue, basically.

Anyway, once you have an engineering degree plenty of jobs (including finance, management schemes etc) are open to you, and even within engineering there are often areas of the work where softer skills are useful, and this part will typically attract more women.

Also -

DH works in another areas of engineering and they are very keen to have more women and have a supportive working environment (you can claim for additional nanny expenses if you have to go abroad, flexible working, wfh etc). In fact for many roles they only now recruit from diverse groups, in an effort to attract more talent.

There are also government programmes aimed at supporting women engineers.

What year is it?!?!

She should tell those 18th century misogynists where to get off.

... and listen to this!
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09sn7yk
She's the engineer who did St Pancras & Crossrail

It is unwise to do civil engineering if you don't like maths. The first year is almost all mathematics.
Nowadays I don't think that being a woman should hold her back. As an aside, didn't Carol Vorderman get her degree in civil engineering?

^
Badly phrased.

I did an engineering subject 30 years ago. There were three women on my course. To be honest my placement year in industry and the massive misogyny I encountered largely put me off it as a career.

While I would hope things are much better now, life's too short to spend the whole of it battling to be taken seriously.

I did a Maths degree - it was erm ... hard and dry ( and I love Maths!)

she should go for the course that she is excited about,.

The gender nonsense is ridiculous and should be completely ignored.

I changed careers and took a massive pay cut because the job was not suited to having a family and this became very important to me.

DH also changed direction in his career when we got married. Before, he traveled to parts of SE Asia nearly alternating weeks in the UK and weeks away.

I wouldn't have studied the subject and gone in the direction I did if I'd been able to see into the future. DH loved his travel so I think would have stuck with it if not for me and our family plans.

I worked in a male dominated field. Men and women tend to be different and tend to like working and spending time, in general, with their own sex. This should be a consideration.

This isn't about sexism, just solid and sensible advice.

I did a male dominated degree - Computer Science with Electronic Engineering. Loved it and it's given me a fantastic career. Tell her to pick what she likes doing most of all and concentrate on that. To be honest in the work place I don't mind it matters whether it's men, women, others... just get the job done and enjoy it.

Of course she should go for it. There are nasty misogynist types in all workplaces. Anyway, if she is family orientated, where better than to find a pool of suitable husbands :)

She needs experience of the actual working environment before she decides on engineering.

My experience echoes PP in the casual sexism, misogyny and not being able to get a decent job in the sector.

The degree was intellectually fascinating but as a career path it was a huge, awful, life changing mistake. The high earnings and prestige never materialised. I'm stuck doing low paid admin 8 years after graduation.

I used to buy into the whole "women in STEM" ideal but not any more.

I think it's sensible advice for anybody (man or woman) to plan for a career that is compatible with their other life ambitions. If she knows already that she is family orientated and would likely want to spend a lot of time with family then opting for a career that involves lots of travel might not be the best idea. I have quite a few friends that have had to give up or change careers because they just aren't happy with the work:life balance, this is especially true when kids come along but health has also affected some people.

I graduated in a different engineering field approx 10 years ago. The civil engineering course in my year had the second highest% females across the faculty (mech was highest, then civil, then aero, then materials, electronics and CompSci but I don't remember the order of those 3). I mean, the % was only about 15 for mech so still not a high value, but still.
Personally, I have found significantly more misogyny (from my colleagues) working in sales than I ever did in uni or in my first two technical jobs, but that's possibly just the company.
I believe that an engineering degree, being an "applied" degree (rather than maths being a "pure" degree iyswim) has a broader application outside the bounds of study, and that an "engineer" is seen as smart-but-relatable whereas a "mathematician" is seen as smart-and-unrelatable. Just my 2p.

My female friend is a civil engineer. She designs waste solutions for developing countries. There is travel but it is usually in decent chunks and she organises it herself to fit round her kids and husband's work. She is self employed and just uses a shared office with some other self employed people she gets on with. She loves her office environment. You can definitely do at least some civil engineering jobs without always being on the road and the other stuff in just a red herring.

I work in a male dominated environment, no problems now. It would have been harder if I had a family at the start of my career as it was a very long hours working culture, and it would not have looked good to be the one leaving to pick the kids.

Now flexible working is here (they are trying to retain staff) and even the option of home working which was laughable a few years ago is on the cards. I think it also helped that I was an older mum so more senior when I took time off - I had a reputation by then

So it may have been true but lots of things change, and working in a high status job will probably be more protection against zero hours etc (even university lecturing has them!)

When we where in school they begged girls to do civil engineering said theres alot bursaries scolarships etc to encorage woman to study it.

Had friends who did it for this reason. Said only downside alot big money jobs where in middle east. They simply couldnt do them in saudi etc.

But otherwise loved it.

There are some serious issues at certain universities for STEM subjects. My friend’s daughter has some serious bullying going on at Manchester in a male dominated science (refusing to be lab parents, called “bitch” or ignored etc). She should see if she can find out number of women accepted on the course and who finish.

As regards travelling in the future, same could be said for so many other professions. That shouldn’t be a deciding factor at this stage (unless it were pilot).

DH works in a related field and works with civil engineers. He has worked with a lot of women and in fact both his line managers in last two offices have been women. I can't talk for all companies but his are definitely actively recruiting women engineers and trying to encourage women into university programmes. They have a graduate development programme as well. We are in NZ (moved here with his job) but they have offices in UK too. I can pm you the company of you want.

The women engineers he works with that I know are all mums and have flexible working or are part-time. All companies are not the same but there are definitely some good ones, and there are a lot more women coming in. If your dd wants to travel it is great too.

I graduated from an Engineering degree 25years ago. I had hoped all this talk about it being a man's profession was behind us. I am very sad to hear it isn't. Tell her to do the Engineering. There are great jobs for engineers out there and I don't see why they would be more incompatible with family life than hundreds of other careers (lets face it careers and family life aren't particularly compatible and we don't tell our daughters not to have a career).

Dh did civil. Worked in a global city for 6 years then in London the last 4. Very limited travel in his jobs. I did maths. I’d do whichever she wants to do (I mean, I’d do maths a million times over but your friend should do whichever she prefers)