Have a Young Girl That Isn't Interested in Engineering? This Might Help

I always thought everyone is interested in engineering..............................................

After finding out differently, now when people asked hows it going, my reply is ...... 'Ok'

When I visited the family for holiday, my brother and I asked our little cousins what their favorite school subjects were. They all described math and science as their least favorite subject which broke our hearts (he going to school to be a math teacher, and my being an engineer).

What were their favorite subjects?

By their age:

8 - Prayer (they're going to a Christian school)
10 - Gym
11 - Doesn't like school

sigh

"Houston, we have problem..."

When I was their ages, there was not one other kid in my class who was interested in engineering sorts of things. When I changed schools, two other kids. My graduating class (at yet a different school), one kid.

At uni there were three female EE majors in our graduating class of about two hundred students, a paltry 1.5%. Two of them dropped-out and became business majors at another school. Roughly one-third of the male students had chosen their majors "for the money" or that "they'd heard EEs were in demand and so it looked like a pretty good career choice, blah blah blah." None of these were doing particularly well in their studies, as one might expect.

Like anything else, in order to be really good at it, you have to love what you're doing. Particularly where it comes to engineering because, unless you do, it's just a lot of dredge-work. And if you don't like math, forget it. Mathematics is the lingua franca of engineering. In a way, Engineering is Mathematics Realized, in-the-flesh. An engineer who doesn't like math is like a doctor who doesn't like Medicine. I've known a few of both. Interestingly, the neurosurgeon turned out to be the best programmer I've ever met. He just didn't like working with WetWare.

HA!

The Mathematician is wrong...

...if the CEO's 1st step covers more than 1/2 the distance.

That Mathematician is right...

...if the CEO's 1st step covers exactly 1/2 the distance. Any more than that and he'd still be right, ya, and any less? She'd be in the Engineer's arms, in the first case, of course, and not reach either of them in the second. He is a Pure mathematician, after all...

That CEO is married to the Engineer, btw (don't tell Dr. Pure-as-the-Driven-Snow it was all a set-up, k? You know how they whinge - like toddlers with full nappies. Sheesh). Besides, everyone knows Pure Mathematicians are celibate, no? Pure. Untainted. I mean, that modifer is no bluddy accident. It was Earned. Years of self-denial, studying under the best ascetics garbed in nothing more than a gossamer linen thong and Living Right. And those little equations they play with? Unsullied by actual use, every last one. Virgins all. Like olive oil! Extra Virgin! Well, that's what we're guessing, anyway. They always keep their doors shut.

Applied Mathematicians? What do you think? Hell-raisers. Bar-brawlers. Rogues. Cads! Straight-up no-holds-barred pedal-to-the-(Fields)-medal mathematics in the raw. And man can those blokes party hearty! A bit on the sketchy side, too, as you might expect (and so you might wanna lock up those Fine Structure Constants from now on). Just last night Klaus, that skanky algebraic topologist down the hall that never showers? Yup, him. Arrested, he was. Arrested, charged with identity theft and tossed in the pokey. Seems he'd made off with Euler's Identity. Euler's, for Bog sake! My god, how low can you go? Tried to fence it on Craigslist. No takers. Explaining it was too complex.

(that'll teach ya!)

...Wait.. the Mathematician and Engineer aren't female too?

I know you weren't explicit, but that statement about going at it 'tongue n hammer', had me envisioning something completely different. Why is the CEO half stepping?

Sounds like calculus 101, day one.

"Sounds like calculus 101, day one."

Move over Berg and PIC (that's right, just sit over there, by that obsolete Barbie and her jinormous pile of fashion accessories).

You guys had your chance. If you'd only included that pink ribbon with your Prototyping Kits, you'd still be in the running, but no!

Live and Learn.

Have a little girl that isn't interested in engineering? Correct her right away ! Make her understand that she has the right to focus on the same things as boys do, whether she likes it or not.

As far as I can remember, chemistry, contruction and assembly toys were not sexually oriented in my days, or perhaps I didn't pay enough attention to the boxes, except one: my chemistry set (it showed a photo of a little blond pre-teen girl that turned me on all the time, standing besides a boy that should be me.

I think we have discussed the matter in the past, this has to do with what we consider ethical, our own perception of the genders' differences or coincidences, what we perceive as fair and equitative; so we will never get to exactly the same convention. We are all individuals.

Thanks, Mizuti. I've been trying to do something similar, starting with 3D printing and my daughters and then on.
Quite annoyed with myself for not having seen this myself before now - the Kickstarter project launched in September!
For my daughters, we started at cubify.com where they have some very simple-to-use apps to do 3D design, and then I take those designs kids make and print them out, and then show them how to use a 3D printer, and then what goes into the software and mechanical for 3D printing, and then...