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 started to internalise messages about girls not being good at maths at about 7. I actually saw it happening in front of my eyes.

Her primary school picked a handful of year 5s and 6s to spend one afternoon a week in the local secondary getting specialist maths tuition. 100% of the kids picked were boys. The maths teacher was male.

She's 15 now. Her self belief is affecting her performance in maths way more than her actual ability. Her teachers are great but there is still subtle and not so subtle sexism in her school around STEM. The boys in her class are not in any way aware or appreciative of societal sexism.

She does have a deep love for biology, is getting to grips with chemistry and physics. She may still go on to a STEM-ish career in something like sports science or animal care.

I have a really good memory for words, but not for many other things! Formulae, processes, visual diagrams etc just won't stay in my head. With maths in particular, I would just have to re-learn methods pretty much from scratch every time we covered or revised them, and it was a real struggle to remember them in exams.

My dd got a level 9 in GCSE maths. She still hated it.

I was good at maths but not science but it was the arts (theatre/music/literature) that fired my imagination and still does)

From an early age my daughter fell in love with dance and theatre and she also loves debating, reading and anything to do with philosophy.

My son on the other hand was really good at maths but he also hated science. Unlike my daughter isn't good at writing but he did find his love in music which he is now studying. So regardless of sex both dd and ds ended up studying the arts.

Why is some STEM degrees having more female representation and some STEM degrees having less female representation even a problem? Last time I checked Medicine and Dentistry were pretty lucrative careers. As long as women are getting into well paying jobs, does it matter that the gender ratio is not exactly 50:50 across the different specialisms?

And if the end game is fair representation, should we be encouraging boys to study Medicine and Dentistry, given they’re only 36% of the student population and we need ‘fair representation’ all round?!

It’s all such a non-problem. Unless there is evidence of discrimination in admissions for Physics and Engineering courses, then let students choose what to study freely.

I was the only girl in both my physics and electronics GCSE classes (2008), and I was treated exactly the same as the boys. I now volunteer to teach STEM in schools on odd days and find the girls are far easier to engage than the boys so I hope the situation is improving.

I attribute my success in STEM to my parents, I was never told I couldn't follow that path, my childhood interests in engineering and astronomy were indulged and I was actively encouraged to pursue a STEM career. My brother followed a humanities path so definitely not just 'sciency' parents. I think a lot of it is to do with the culture at home.

I’ve always felt I was naturally better at English and other languages than I was at science but I ended up doing a Chemistry degree and teaching Chemistry. There’s no way I could teach English with the enthusiasm I teach Chemistry. The problem I have with the arts is that your enjoyment of them is conditional on who you are: I remember finding A Level English a real slog, despite it being my best subject, because the texts I studied just didn’t resonate with me. By contrast as long as I could understand the stuff I learned in Chemistry it fascinated me.

I did, however, find the sciences pretty boring at GCSE (I only chose A level Chemistry because I did my science and maths GCSEs in Year 10 so I got to do AS Science in Year 11). There are topics in Chemistry at GCSE that I have to work hard to make engaging when I teach them now. I think this is partly because the curriculum swings between too simplistic (a few years back I was teaching how potatoes are different after they’re cooked) and too complicated (titration calculations are pretty tricky for GCSE pupils), so it puts off different sets of pupils in turn.

I agree with a PP too that lots of girls label themselves as “creative” early on and immediately shut the sciences off as an option. I try hard to disabuse my pupils of this notion - I put lots of links to other subjects in my lessons, and they know I’m “creative” too so they can hopefully see you don’t have to be one or the other.

I found the leap from GCSE to A level too big and ended up switching to English, French and History after a disaster of a yr12 (Lower Sixth in old money).

DD was all set to excel at STEM A levels after a brilliant first term in yr12 but couldn't cope with online learning during lockdown and ended up switching to an engineering apprenticeship which seems to have restored her love of the subject. Teams was not an adequate substitute for science subjects for her.

I just found them really boring, was far more interested in English and then further on Psychology

@110APiccadilly I don’t know: I went to a massive comprehensive (and my experience of school was marred by my teachers constantly telling me how much cleverer than me my older brother was) and I feel the same as you - I find the idea that you’re either right or wrong reassuring. I always loved English, but I didn’t like the way a poet may have meant this or may have meant that but we were all just speculating and we’d never really know. But I know a lot of the girls I teach say they like this because it means they can’t possibly be wrong, so I guess confidence must play some part in it. I
don’t know how big a factor it is though!

I'm 45 yo. Always been absolutely obsessed with life cycles and life itself. Started keeping mammalian pets reptiles at a very young age, but I was a stand alone phenomenon within my family. I had no idea what so ever that I could do an actual degree in zoology or primatology or herpetology! Nobody told me. I went to local colleges and it was your standard A levels in English, sciences, textiles, art etc. I didn't know anybody apart from teachers that had been to a university. And they were all in standard subjects.

Anyway. I got my degree in English/humanities and a MA in a related subject. I filled my spare time with breading rare and exotic animals. Reading books written by far flung experts. Going to the occasional expo or symposium. The day I found out that a university just 125 miles from me did a MA in herpetology I cried.

IT always felt very much like that career was for other people . People with snakes in their back yard. People with iguanas dropping out of trees as they are an invasive species that thrives in the summer but freezes in the winter. Not for a silly little girl like me that lived on a council estate in the middle of a tiny new town and stuck out like a Sore thumb with her weird interests. My parents didn't really encourage me as they didn't know any different. They had no real qualifications. They certainly never mentioned going to university. I was an independent adult living alone when I started my degree in English at 22.

I’d strongly argue that the physical sciences are beautiful too though. There’s a real sense of wonder about science if you’re open to it. And the (erroneous) message that there’s no creativity in the physical sciences is exactly what puts people off it: creative thinking was behind all the big discoveries in science after all.

We had really poor science teachers at school (mid 90s) so I don't think anyone really excelled at it. Dd is at at all girls school and really enjoys STEM subjects as has brilliant teachers.

We have to make a big choice of all science or no science at A level so at age 16. Maybe a wider variety at that age to keep options open would help. I liked all my subjects and couldn’t choose between history geography biology and chemistry and art. though i had chosen maths first. My mum said if you cant choose do science its more useful so I did!

I think though, that you have to be quite far into science before the creativity comes in. And I think when people think 'creative ' they think make-believe rather than outside the box.

It was the analysis of language and ideas and intentions that drew me to literature. I liked the idea of no right answer ( although that's not strictly true, as I have to tell my students), but it's more that there are different answers or interpretations, as long as you can justify them. I like that flash you get, when something just connects or makes sense in a way you never realised before.

I was a straight A student, but science and maths were the subjects I had to work at to do well. Arts, languages and humanities I found intuitive and could excel at without effort, whereas STEM subjects I had to sit and revise and study and almost force the facts and formulae into my brain, because it just didn't come naturally. So I got the A grades, but not much of it stuck.

If I had to retake GCSEs now, I'd feel I was starting from scratch with STEM subjects, but I'd feel pretty confident already in things like French, English and History.

I went to an all-girls school, so boys in the classroom weren't the issue, nor any expectation that girls should take sciences and do perfectly well in them. I did them to GCSE, even winning the school maths cup one year.

But did humanities A levels. Because I was also doing very well in them and enjoyed them more (and was the youngest, rebelling against everyone else in my family (including mother and older sister) doing STEM at degree level and having careers in it.

One factor was though I was perfectly good at STEM subjects, they didn't "sing" - teachers were competent but instilled no love of the subject - no hint of the "language" of maths, or the beauty of chemistry or physics. It was just a series of "how to do hard sums" or "learn how to apply these equations" or "learn these facts and how to regurgitate them in various circumstances"

I look at the difference in my DC's experience - they didn't cover as much ground (for example no calculus until sixth form) but had teachers who, in the main, brought the subject to life - not just how to do this hard sum, but why you would want to do it and how it's part of a more interesting whole.

They have all done on to do STEM A levels, so I can only speak for myself in terms of your original "why not STEM" question.

Slightly different angle.
I've a STEM Degree and MSc.
I did a decade in industry. I asked for reduced hours: rejected.
DH got the opportunity to work abroad, which for various reasons worked at the time. After 5 years our, no-one, but noonewould give me a job in industry.

So, i would be working in STEM at an appropriate level, if the jobs were a) there and b) flexible.

As it is, I'm working in a school.

One thing I advise pupils when they can’t decide is that if you give up the sciences you will probably never go back to them whereas you can do the arts in your spare time. Mae Jemison couldn’t decide whether to be a doctor or a dancer: her mother told her she could always be a doctor who also dances, but she couldn’t be a dancer who also, well, docts!

My brain doesn't work with STEM subjects, but humanities, it's a different story. I didn't choose any STEM subjects because it meant I'd need to continue with extra tuition, and I didn't enjoy them. I was told by my maths teacher that I would need maths and it would be a mistake to not take it....fast forward nearly 20 years after completing school, I have a master's degree and a successful career in an area that still hasn't required any STEM skills.

But women aren’t getting into well paid jobs. That’s the problem. There is a huge gender pay gap in this country (and most countries). I’m not sure why you don’t agree that low numbers of girls studying stem subjects at A Level and degree level is a problem.

And please stop referring back to medicine etc. That’s just one small part of the picture.

I did Biology, Chemistry, English and AS French so a real mix. I got into Oxford to do Chemistry. I had to do extra maths to catch up once I got there, but it does prove you don’t have to go one way or the other at 16. (That was 20 years ago, though!)

My DD 14 has struggled with maths from day 1 of Foundation and despite us trying to support her at home for the early years school very much had a "don't worry she'll get there" attitude. I deeply regret not trying to get her more help earlier at school because despite her having tutoring over the past 4 years I feel the effect of her not getting all the early basics has meant she never caught up properly. This then I think probably affected how she has got on with science and her confidence with academia in general.

I know how pushed schools are and how much they are struggling, I really do. Some of her teachers have tried so hard to patch up her knowledge gaps and o could hug them. But I feel so sad that she could have done so much better.

My experience has been that in mixed sex schools, girls are subtly dissuaded by boys. In same sex schools, STEM is much more popular amongst girls.

Buy yes it makes me so happy to see girls and boys smashing societies expectations of traditional gendered occupations and going for it