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TMU’s New Feats of Engineering Program to Address Gender Gap in Engineering, Encourage Women to Enrol

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[03/15/2024: Due to the name change of Toronto Metropolitan University, as of 2022, this article has been adjusted to reflect the new name.]

New program partners women high school students with local companies, engineers

This May and June, Toronto Metropolitan University’s new Feats of Engineering program will help women high school students from across the GTA experience real world engineering first hand from partners such as Bombardier, EllisDon and Google.

The new program provides girls with exclusive, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to go behind the scenes of today’s leading engineering companies. Participants will get to meet engineers, tour the facilities and be a part of the projects that are making our world a safer, better place to live.

“At [TMU] we are focused on offering many different forms of outreach, support and networking opportunities to increase the number of women in engineering,” says Kyla Sask, Engineering Enrichment and Outreach Coordinator in the Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science at Toronto Metropolitan University. “The Feats of Engineering will not only provide first-hand experience into some of the most exciting engineering work in the GTA, they also offer an exceptional opportunity for young girls to interact with a women engineering role model.”

Feats of Engineering was created as part of an unprecedented collaboration with university engineering faculties at TMU, Western University, University of Waterloo and UOIT. The collaboration is supported by a four-year grant of $1.4 million from Hydro One. Motorola Solutions Foundation has also supported the initiative with over $65,000 in grant funding. Together, these partners are implementing coordinated strategies to improve enrolment and career opportunities for women and young girls in engineering.

Another initiative made possible with the support of HydroOne and Motorola Solutions Foundation is a ‘WEMADEIT’ Youth Think Tank. As part of the think tank, teenage girls from GTA high schools are exploring why  awareness. of women and enrollment in engineering is so low in comparison to male counterparts.

On average, the gender breakdown of student enrollment in undergraduate engineering programs in Canada is approximately 20% women; the gender gap is even wider in engineering industries. In both cases, the gap is persistent, with little change over the last 10 years. Girls participating in the Youth Think Tank are helping to design the brand for the new initiative as well as weighing in on how TMU should re-design their summer programs to reach more young girls.

Feats of Engineering participating companies include:

Hydro One
Motorola Solutions
Siemens
Canadian Tire
City of Toronto
City of Mississauga
Ellis Don
Celestica
Bombardier
Google
GE Canada
Learn more about TMU’s commitment to girls in engineering at: http://www.ryerson.ca/feas/programs/wie/

Dear Guidance Counsellor & Student Support,

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We asked our Youth Think Tank to write letters describing their thoughts around Engineering to the people who matter in their world. Listen up WEMADEIT community!

Dear Guidance Counsellor & Student Support,

Over the last 2 months I’ve been part of a Youth Think Tank to investigate why less than 20% of engineering students are women, and to create a website that talks about engineering in way that’s actually interesting for teenagers. Because of my experience, I have a few insights I’d like to share with you about how to communicate with high school girls, how to talk with us about our futures and decision making, about our attitudes towards STEM, and how gender issues affect all of this.

What I have learned through my experience with the Youth Think Tank is that many students have very limited perception of what engineering is and what engineers are capable of doing. I have done interviews with some friends from our school and I was surprised to find how they did not know the extent of creativity and imagination that engineering actually requires.

What I have come to believe is that the cause of the inaccurate perception of what engineering is, is the lack of similarity and connection of the classroom material and the actual possibilities of a career in engineering. The students have very little information about how the subjects studied in class can actually contribute to a career.

As you are a member of the student support and outreach, I believe that you can think of possible events that can showcase what engineering really is. I personally learned a lot about engineering through talking to professional engineers, many of whom are eager to volunteer and talk to young kids and teenagers about engineering and its capacities.

To learn more about these individuals and their work, I suggest you take a quick look around our website, WEMADEIT.ca.

Sincerely,
WEMADEIT Youth Think Tank Member