Girls who DON’T study STEM

[Ippagoggy]

As a woman in STEM (I work as a quant for a hedge fund and I studied maths for my undergrad and computer science for my phd), I am often dragged into discussions at work about “why there aren’t there more women in our field?”

while there are a number of hypotheses put forward (I won’t bother repeating them), one thing that is generally acknowledged that the phenomenon starts early, with fewer girls taking these subjects at school (at least in the west) and this then leads to a “pipeline problem”.

I therefore would love to ask the women on here — both of their own experiences from
their school days and what they might observe of their daughters. Why have you or your daughter NOT chosen a study path or career in STEM? Was it simply that there was never any interest (and fair enough! Different people like different things)? Was there a lack of exposure in some way? Or maybe their interest in your part was but you felt discouraged from pursuing that interest for one reason or another? And what would those reasons have been?

By the way, to be clear, I am not passing any judgement on the value of STEM subjects versus non-STEM. We need both. I am just genuinely curious to understand how people are wired.

for me, when I was about 11 years old and has access to a computer that I was allowed to play with — I could not believe my eyes. This box was basically like magic and the thought that I could actually learn to make it do things was intoxicating. I became a nerd overnight.

My DD is very good at STEM subjects (best in class for 1) but wont he taking them at A'Level because she prefers words/people/essay writing. Her best friends are all doing STEM so no peer pressure stopping her doing that.

I took 1 STEM and 2 humanities. The STEM A'Level was so badly taught it brought everything down as I struggled to revise for that one having not actually been taught it. Changed the course of my life.

I found them really hard and couldn’t relate to them. I loved history and English

I did study them because I had no interest. But I think a lot of that is environmental.

I had a weird upbringing when it came to education. Mum wanted me to have good grades and wanted me to go to uni because my elder brother did. But no one was really invested in my education as both parents assumed I would be a sahp or only have a part time pin money job once I got married and had kids. My parents weren’t fussed what I did at uni. Just that I went.

The school I went to was great for getting good grades but also killing any enjoyment I got out of a subject. I hated history at school and am now I eased with it. I was a middle of the road pupil. So largely ignored. I picked a levels at random because my mum expected me to do them and hated doing them. Got decent grades and started working full time in hospitality.

There was no career guidance or support in my life. I don’t think anyone expected much of me. No one at school knew my mum had severe mental health problems so had no support for that. I was one of the first cohorts that would have had to get a loan to go Uni and I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so decided not to go. I floated around working full time in hospitality got married, had a child and worked in an office so I had regular hours.

I was in my late 20s working in a call centre before I realised I could have a high flying career. But was obviously behind my peers. So I stuck to call centres, used their resources for career planning, paid for a coach outside work to help focus myself and help me create a path. Ended up with a diagnosis of PTSD due to my abusive marriage then a diagnosis for adhd. I carried in pushing in my career and studying all sorts am early 40, now a director in a Construction company. Oddly, despite hating maths I work with data. I use the data to drive improvements. It’s a means to an end. People in my company seem to have lots of data to tell them wether they are performing or not, but unable to really analyse what’s it telling them or how to use it to spot areas of improvement.

If I think about it I saw STEM subjects as subjects people studied when they knew what career they wanted. They had an end goal. They were also for people who were high achievers and people who were especially intelligent. I didn’t think I was either so it never entered my head at 16 to explore them for a levels.

Mum passed away 18 months ago and as she aged she was actually in awe of what I achieved. When she passed I was a single parent of 2, in a well paid career and was returning to studying again. My Dad is always telling me how proud he is of me. But until recently he didn’t seem to realise what impact him and mum had on my slow start. When we have discussed it recently, he seemed shocked that I didn’t go to uni because of the cost and felt really disappointed in himself that he didn’t know that. He was annoyed at himself for not realising I had adhd or felt like I wasn’t able to achieve so didn’t try for a long time.

I made sure my dd had all the information, advice etc. I got her a private career coach during the pandemic as she was feeling lost. She is now studying law which she loves. And I do the same with DS.

I still, to some degree, see STEM as not for me. I still think it’s for incredibly intelligent people. Dd could have definitely done a STEM subject but wanted to do Law. Again, could be environmental but I tried to favour STEM as she was growing up but I focused on helping her find a path she felt suited and supporting that. Rather than the subject itself. She definitely enjoyed STEM subjects more than I did but just felt it wasn’t for her.

I can’t ignore that DS (who is autistic) has a natural talent for STEM subjects and often ask myself is it nature or nurture. Did I, despite trying not to, still end up (some how) encouraging the kids in one direction. Or did outside influences take over.

I think it’s really complex.

These do not have very large student numbers and aren’t offered by all schools/colleges.

Biology, Chemistry, Maths and Physics are the core science subjects and overall they look pretty balanced to me.

And I completely agree with you about A levels - they don’t tell the full story at all and we must look at university degrees and subsequent careers. I was just responding to a poster who was fixating on A levels.

My point is that certain degrees/careers which are undoubtedly STEM are conveniently left out of the equation: Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine. Let’s add them in and revisit the ‘problem’.

DD has just sat her GCSE'S. The majority of her friends are now choosing STEM subjects. Her high school has been very strong in this area overall.
She's choosing arts/humanities subjects for A level because she enjoys them more.
Good teaching is key. She had an amazing maths teacher who really unlocked the subject for her and a really brilliant chemistry teacher (female).

I did study STEM mostly because my dad was an engineer. Interestingly, though my DS was one of only two men who studied English at Cambridge in his year.

I did maths at A Level but it was so dry and tedious compared to my other A level subjects (Law and Psychology). The way that it was taught (mid 90s) actually tanked my love of maths at that time and I've never looked back. Went on to do a Bsc in Criminology and really found my interest here. DD is interested in science but she is year 8 and has a long way to go.

I definitely agree that as well as promoting girls into STEM we need to promote boys into the arts.

Why do we need to promote girls into STEM when they are already studying them in great numbers? (e.g. see my earlier post about A level Biology and Chemistry being 64% and 54% female, respectively.)

DD was encouraged to follow her strengths, which happens to be STEM subjects. She achieved excellent A level results, two subjects being science subjects, and graduated with a first in a STEM subject. She reckons that at least 50% of the students on her course were female.

She works in an allied health care role, is continuing her studies related to her job and is planning to do a postgraduate degree.

In her case studying all arts and humanities subjects at A level would have been her worst nightmare.

I loved science at school, got double A at GCSE, but struggled with Maths and while I got my C it wasn't easy.

I took sciences at A level but struggled with the Maths required. Honestly I would have been better being advised to ditch sciences and go for more arts subjects. The girls in STEM message made this harder though.

Incidentally my classes had a good number of girls in them for A level.

I could have gone either way. In fact, i only made my decision literally on the day I started 6th form, although I only got a C in Maths and have realised, in later life, that my brain is more suited to subjects where it can ping about, rather than follow a methodical route. I suspect I may have struggled more at A Level with STEM subjects than at gcse.

I get why the push for STEM, but it does seem to be all one way- Where's the push for boys to come to the Humanities? I see so many kids going in to STEM because they feel they should, but often, they'd get better grades in subjects they're better at.

It worries me how fewer and fewer Kids are doing Literature or foreign languages.

Early predictions for my dc are that ds will go history/ English route and dd possibly science/ maths route. She has a much tidier mind and is able to stick to one topic at a time.

I have a GCSE DD and feel like she has been hit over the head with the 'only STEM subjects are good and worthwhile' message since she entered the school system. It's great in that she's been able to access some really interesting science and maths days held at research institutions and (top class) universities. But as she has grown older she has found the relentless messaging quite ridiculous. As it is she has chosen A levels which straddle the divide.

I could have written this! I enjoyed STEM subjects at school so naturally did three sciences post-16,. Also started psychology, dropped it because hated how wishy washy it felt compared with sciences! I've found this later on in life too as I've tried to do Masters in Education-allied subjects twice and hated every second of it and dropped out, too subjective marking and generally vague, for my brain!

At uni my tutor actually encouraged me to stay on and pick up my dissertation topic for further research but I'd already accepted a PGCE place. Had no idea about research (or anything other than NHS, really) careers. The irony was I was doing WP outreach to young people to encourage them to get into HE but the uni did a dreadful job of explaining the steps after a first degree to us.

We have no family background of degree-based careers so teaching was my default. It's been forever since I taught post-16 so I can't say for sure but my hope would be that the internet now allows young people better access to quality careers information, provided they are signposted to it?

I also was crap at practical which is a standing joke with my classes at school when we do them 😂

I work in a STEM role and ended up here because of the school I was at. Nobody told me that "girls didn't do STEM", so I didn't realise it was unusual until much later. I was exposed to real life applications of maths and science early on so understood why what I was learning was useful. I suspect that had I been taught by different teachers the outcome would have been very different.

@Insommmmnia my A level physics teacher refused to give me a predicted grade of A, even though my schoolwork warranted it, as "girls don't get As" well I did, and luckily also got my uni course which needed 3 As (in hindsight not sure how).

Hopefully teachers like that are well and truly retired now and my own DC can thrive in there STEM studies/careers.

Physics and maths can be repetitive and dull. Lab work can also be repetitive and dull. I say this as a biology teacher who has worked in labs.

The most popular A Levels are STEM subjects though. For boys and girls. We actually need the same level of promotion in the arts and humanities that STEM get in schools.
If women still aren't coming through in the work place then that may be a work place issue.
For the record I used to love programming in BASIC in the 80s. But did English and History in the end. Partly due to the quality (or lack of) of teaching in my school. But also I knew that I didn't want to work in an office so didn't take up the offers for accountancy I was getting post graduation.

This! I went to a grammar school in the very distant past and girls were relentlessly pushed towards STEM subjects. My dad built (as in soldered together from a kit) a computer in about 1980 so we had a home computer before anyone else I knew. But I just wasn't interested or very good at STEM subjects and instead enjoyed the humanities. DH is much more scientific and works in IT and I hoped my DDs would be more STEM focused like him. DD1 did a science, an art and a humanity subject for A levels and followed that with an art foundation year and is off to university to study a design based subject. I would much prefer her to be following a STEM career as the financial reward is so much higher but I won't be letting her see that as she has to follow what makes her happy. Creativity is undervalued in this country, the famous Ken Robinson TED talk about creativity sums it up beautifully OP and is worth a watch.

I assume you are referring to me. I’m not fixated with A Levels, I simply stated that there will be no kids taking stem degrees if they haven’t previously taken A Levels in those subjects. So there would be absolutely no point investing in a huge campaign to encourage girls to do stem degrees if we haven’t addressed the fact that fewer of them study stem subjects at A Level.

I wanted to be a scientist but ended up bring a musician originally. I was exposed to music and not science. But my sister and brother are both scientists. My mum thought we were only successful if we had an 'ology'.
My dd is studying International relations and politics and we talk about politics and the world a lot at home so she was exposed to it. Also I pushed the importance of languages and she can speak French.

(Ds is doing a science a level and humanities and the degree subjects ge in looking at is a mixture of both - he wants to work in green economics).

The latest A level statistics show that there a far more girls take up subjects like further maths and physics in girls only school comprared to coed school.

For myself, my gifts always lay in art , literature and music. I wanted to be a writer or an artist from very young, went to art school but ended up being a piano teacher. I was utterly bemused and bored by science and maths. My eldest DD was also very artistic and great at writing, with a love of history. Also no interest in science. She did a creative subject at uni after much tossing between that and history. My mother is also a great lover of history and literature, became a teacher. My brother also massively into history and literature, now and always has been an English teacher. So it's not just the female line but basically our whole family have a humanities/ arts leaning. My grandparents were an artist and a teacher also. I do wonder if it is in our DNA or it's just what we were exposed to/ looked up to as children.

I've an established engineer as a dad so STEM was always a background sound in our house.

I am terrible at maths, I managed a D at GCSE (all the others were good) and I just can't make my brain do some of the formulaic thinking required.

I do have a humanities PhD though so I'm not a total idiot.

I did do science O levels (last year before GCSE came in) but the teaching was rubbish. We literally had to teach ourselves chemistry O level but were allowed to leave the rest of the class who were doing CSE to study from an imprenetrable book. There were 3 of us. I did do maths A level but the teacher hadn't got any maths qualifications at all. He was a good teacher though just not as good as he would have been had he got qualifications himself.

This was pre access to the Internet so it wasn't as easy to work around. I intend to do science A levels for fun when I retire.

I was academic at school so was never bad at STEM subjects but they didn't interest me. I'm more of a social and people person. Building or creating things has never appealed to me, either directly or helping with the theory. I have an intellectual interest in how the world works, but no desire to investigate it myself.

I was a teacher and LOVED teaching STEM subjects. But that was at primary level and the bits I loved were the practical activities

The only part of STEM that might have appealed was coding, because I specialised in languages and there's obvious overlap. But I have ended up working in software development and coding bores me to tears. So I assume it's the human/travel element of languages that I like not just the logic side.