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.

I don't find stem creative, it doesn't make me think. Humanities, social sciences are beautiful. They are about people and their complexities.

Not read the full thread so this may have been said. Bases on my anecdotal evidence, girls seem much more likely to study stem subjects in girls only schools. I don't know why. Obviously this isn't a robust study!

I'm mid 40s and I didnt pick maths and biology a levels because the advice I recieved from my sixth form was 'a lot of girls in particular do equally well in maths and english at gcse, but find the maths just pulls away from them at A level. They are more likely to carry on doing well in English. I went in unsure which road to go down. I was choosing between maths, biology and french or English, biology and French and ended up doing English, History and French because they said it was a stronger combination.

These days I am surprised they were giving sex based advice and I cant believe I listened!

I coukdnt grasp physics - there was something about the syllabus that put me off. Now I would love to do physics.

I didnt go to university.

In mine and dd's and dm's case, no interest and found STEM subjects more difficult and less appealing than other subjects.

I teach languages in an all girls' school however, and maths and science are hugely popular throughout school and have very high take-up at A Level. Arguably too high, as the head of maths has admitted that many girls seem to take maths because they think it's important or because their parents want them to. There is also a rumour that STEM is pushed heavily by certain members of SLT, to the point that students are persuaded out of doing subjects like mine. I don't know if that's true though.

I'm also a big picture person rather than a details one. The people who use it and the business are always the things I'm most interested in. I don't have the eye for detail to be writing competent code (or the measurements for engineering projects etc).

To use roles from my current field (which ironically is STEM) I'm the product owner/BA/UX/tester that sells ideas and helps shape how the product should work for users. I don't have the mindset to be the dev/UI designer who actually crafts it and tracks down the bugs.

One of my DD's is an engineer, the other (who was actually better than her sister at maths and science getting full marks at gcse in maths) gave it up partly because it was so competitive, the teacher wrote their names on the board In homework score order each week! The boys fought to get too and were annoyed she pipped them to it most weeks, only one other girl in a class of 28 in top set (state school).

She's very good with words too so is happy in her choice

I do think quite a few students, girls and boys, go into STEM because they think that's where the money is. My parents knew nothing about A levels or uni. They gave me free choice at a level, but my dad pushed me heavily towards business 'or something useful' at uni, because he didn't see the point of an English degree. I couldn't have imagined anything more boring than a business degree, but I think my dad just saw anything else as a waste of time.

Did my English degree and became a teacher, because I had no idea what kind of jobs were out there. For me, a degree would have benefited from having some careers advice somewhere along the line, rather than relying on parents who left school at 15 and who only really knew of professions such as Dr, solicitor, accountant.

I couldn't see how I'd ever use any of the information I was being asked to learn. Maybe if I'd seen the types of careers I could go into and what I'd actually be doing I'd have had more of an interest.

To be honest I still don't know which jobs are in STEM. I just know they earn more. Surprise surprise as it's male dominated.

One of the schools I work in pushes 'STEAM' now. So it adds in arts. They do cross curricular days each term You should look at that concept and whether that would increase women in stem.

I did physics, maths and chemistry for a level and got As…then did law at Uni.

i wasn’t sure I could cope with another 3/4 years of physics, but really the biggest issue was that I couldn’t see a career pathway. My understanding was either you work for NASA or you end up as a poorly paid technician in a secondary school.

if there was more clarity around possible (well paying) careers, as might have chosen a different path.

They were just so boring🤷🏻‍♀️

I did English, history and Art A levels. History is my favourite thing ever.

I went to art college to do a degree in design. No regrets.

Fewer doesn’t mean “few”.

See my other reply to you. Female representation at A level in Biology and Chemistry is 64% and 54%, respectively. Doesn’t seem like few girls are studying STEM to me. Seems like plenty. And this then plays out in the over-representation of women in degrees such as Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine (also Biology, Biochemistry, Zoology, Pharmacology, etc.)

Never understood them. I was "gifted and talented" in language arts but, with dyspraxia and autism, spiky academic profile and concrete thinking couldn't understand many abstract concepts eg forces, sound waves etc (still can't). Maybe better and didferentiated teaching would have made the subjects accessible to me, but this was the 80s.

I did 1 STEM subject, 1, arts subject and the overlap subject of Geography at A-level. I did the arts subject at uni and now teach it because that’s my passion. So, in the end, I just enjoyed it more.

I'm a stem graduate (maths) and now a secondary teacher.
My dd was a huge chemistry nut at school but decided not to carry it on to a level as she wanted to focus on social sciences instead. Currently at uni studying psychology with dreams of being a psychologist working in children's mental health.

So from just us - two very able candidates to become STEM workers yet are both wanting careers helping and nurturing young people instead. I like working with people and would not want to do 9-5 sitting at a computer 5 days a week. Maybe that is the problem with getting more woman into stem - we prefer more nurturing, people facing roles where we feel we are helping individuals.

I would have liked IT as coding is another language and logical too. But when I was at school, "computing" was only taught to the lower sets. 😮

I'm a lot older than you but in high school I wanted to join the computer class and was thrown out and told it was boys only. Same when I tried to join technical drawing (not the same I know but same reaction)
I was then told to go and train as a hairdresser as I'd be married and pregnant by 19 (fantastic careers councillor). So I became a nurse.
We have pushed education with all our kids. Dd, our youngest is off to uni doing biosciences. I'll live vicariously through her.

'STEAM' is just a rebranding of applied science. The notion that STEM by itself is dull and boring is compounded by it usually being taught very badly. The A is irrelevant really.

OP most of my teachers were not good and I thought I was stupid. Went to uni, had some friends who were great at explaining and got diagnosed with ADHD.

I understood all the concept easily. It's just that my short-term memory was so bad, when people used symbols in equations I could never remember what each symbol stood for! Of course the same things tend to be used over time but we had paper exams and schools and it was too much.

I managed to take some STEM courses in my degree and am now a programmer. Got an IDE to remind me of the symbols and doing pretty well!

I did like Physics and got an A at GCSE, would have considered taking it for A-levels if I had had help.

Yes in our school the boys did technical drawing and woodwork and metalwork, and we had to do needlework and cookery. Taught embroidery aged 11!

'Nurturing' is one thing but I do think STEM has a reputation for the lone genius, that's not true.
Academics have to get grants, collaborate, teach. Even as a programmer I spend a lot of time talking to people. Drawing on whiteboards.

I do a lot of Women in Tech work and girls are surprised. They thought I'm glued to my chair coding alone all day. No thanks to the media.

I have a bright all rounder DD. She could have done either Maths/Sciences or Languages/Humanities. In a co-ed environment comparative to the whole cohort she was just better at Languages/English/Humanities compared to the boys. At A level, they make you choose one way to make uni applications easier and make sense. Most kids choose the subjects they are most naturally good at compared to the whole cohort. They get told to this and you will get 4 A stars and into Oxford etc. vs if you do Science, you may not. Being good at Languages, Maths and Music and coding is a thing but the A level system doesn’t cater to doing what is seen as very differing subjects. The top unis won’t accept you.

Parents were both lawyers.
DBros (2 of them) and I all went into
STEM.
DSis (youngest) was capable and had opportunity, but chose not to, more as teenage rebellion than anything else. She did a fine art foundation course.

Sciences were taught very boringly at my school, and the biology teacher was mean. Plus I was squeamish about cutting things up and burnt my hand on a Bunsen burner.

We didn't have to do any science O levels so I didn't (did three languages instead plus hist and geog, RS, 2xEnglish and maths). I have never regretted it/needed them.

I do think more serious science research is potentially interesting, but the basics at school were dreadfully dull. The subjects I did do have been more useful in my career.

Right, but only 39% of the A Level maths cohort is female, and only 15% for computing. This is a massive difference and goes a long way to explaining the gender pay gap. So many of the top paying jobs are in tech and so many of these people study maths and computing at A Level befire going on to do degrees in those (or related) subjects.

I accept that female representation in medicine, dentistry and vetinerary science is good, but that’s because society tells girls that those careers are suitable for them. We need the same message for other STEM and tech careers and this starts with building an interest whilst still at school.

(I should mention that I have career expertise in getting girls into science and technology careers so I do know what I’m talking about).

Funnily enough, this is the exact reason my Dd chose to do all STEM A'level subjects, she loves that there is usually a definite right answer, no debate or opinion involved. She's loving maths but is actually not enjoying biology as much because it's less clear what answers they're looking for sometimes. My Ds however has chosen English and Sociology, precisely due to the reasons you give.

I enjoyed maths and science, but was just really shit at them, it's as if maths problems just linger a few inches outside of whichever part of my brain is needed to solve them. I did an art degree.