Cargando…

Improving Female Participation in Professional Engineering Geology to Bring New Perspectives to Ethics in the Geosciences

Many papers have been published related to the retention and advancement of women in sciences. Engineering geology is one of the professional areas where women have not yet broken the gender barrier. The research issues of this paper are focused on why female students “leak out” at the end of engine...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Pereira, Dolores
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4199027/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25216254
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph110909429
_version_ 1782339841515585536
author Pereira, Dolores
author_facet Pereira, Dolores
author_sort Pereira, Dolores
collection PubMed
description Many papers have been published related to the retention and advancement of women in sciences. Engineering geology is one of the professional areas where women have not yet broken the gender barrier. The research issues of this paper are focused on why female students “leak out” at the end of engineering geology studies, and what can be done to encourage them to complete their degrees with an engineering career in mind. The author has studied students’ preferences of the final year project required to complete their degree at the University of Salamanca (Salamanca, Spain). It has been found that most female students are choosing a more theoretical final project instead of a practical one relevant to professional employment, contrary to their male peers. Focus group meetings with the students showed that at the end of five years of engineering geology training, many female students, unsatisfied with the content of their courses, feel that their expectations had not been met. They often have preferences for traditional geology rather than applied branches of the subject. Also, they do not feel comfortable with future job prospects in the profession. From the findings of this research it is clear that tutoring and mentoring would be valuable from the beginning of studies to allow all students to become aware of the content and the potential outcomes of engineering geology studies. In the case of female students, it is particularly important for them to know from the very start that they are about to join what is still a man’s world but that they are capable of achieving just as much as men can in the profession. Most importantly, the involvement of more female engineers in professional engineering, including teaching duties, should serve as example and role models in students’ education and future careers.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4199027
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2014
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-41990272014-10-17 Improving Female Participation in Professional Engineering Geology to Bring New Perspectives to Ethics in the Geosciences Pereira, Dolores Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Many papers have been published related to the retention and advancement of women in sciences. Engineering geology is one of the professional areas where women have not yet broken the gender barrier. The research issues of this paper are focused on why female students “leak out” at the end of engineering geology studies, and what can be done to encourage them to complete their degrees with an engineering career in mind. The author has studied students’ preferences of the final year project required to complete their degree at the University of Salamanca (Salamanca, Spain). It has been found that most female students are choosing a more theoretical final project instead of a practical one relevant to professional employment, contrary to their male peers. Focus group meetings with the students showed that at the end of five years of engineering geology training, many female students, unsatisfied with the content of their courses, feel that their expectations had not been met. They often have preferences for traditional geology rather than applied branches of the subject. Also, they do not feel comfortable with future job prospects in the profession. From the findings of this research it is clear that tutoring and mentoring would be valuable from the beginning of studies to allow all students to become aware of the content and the potential outcomes of engineering geology studies. In the case of female students, it is particularly important for them to know from the very start that they are about to join what is still a man’s world but that they are capable of achieving just as much as men can in the profession. Most importantly, the involvement of more female engineers in professional engineering, including teaching duties, should serve as example and role models in students’ education and future careers. MDPI 2014-09-11 2014-09 /pmc/articles/PMC4199027/ /pubmed/25216254 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph110909429 Text en © 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Pereira, Dolores
Improving Female Participation in Professional Engineering Geology to Bring New Perspectives to Ethics in the Geosciences
title Improving Female Participation in Professional Engineering Geology to Bring New Perspectives to Ethics in the Geosciences
title_full Improving Female Participation in Professional Engineering Geology to Bring New Perspectives to Ethics in the Geosciences
title_fullStr Improving Female Participation in Professional Engineering Geology to Bring New Perspectives to Ethics in the Geosciences
title_full_unstemmed Improving Female Participation in Professional Engineering Geology to Bring New Perspectives to Ethics in the Geosciences
title_short Improving Female Participation in Professional Engineering Geology to Bring New Perspectives to Ethics in the Geosciences
title_sort improving female participation in professional engineering geology to bring new perspectives to ethics in the geosciences
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4199027/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25216254
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph110909429
work_keys_str_mv AT pereiradolores improvingfemaleparticipationinprofessionalengineeringgeologytobringnewperspectivestoethicsinthegeosciences