Where Are the Women?

MBA and engineering programs continue to lag behind in female enrollment

Today, women outnumber men applying to medical school; 49 percent of those currently enrolled in the med track are women. Female enrollment in graduate engineering and MBA programs shares medical school’s 2010 numbers — as they stood in 1977.

While most graduate programs in the U.S. boast an even gender split in enrollment, engineering and MBA programs continue to lag behind; national averages hover around 20 and 29 percent, respectively. These figures are slowly increasing, but not without aggressive persistence. So, the mystery remains: Where are the women?

A Problem of Perception
The challenges for both graduate engineering and MBA programs are almost identical in terms of female enrollment. Perhaps most disappointingly, one of the biggest barriers, according to the school officials we spoke to, is the continued perception of engineering and business as traditionally “masculine.” But the options available to graduates are much broader than the careers’ caricatures.

“Engineering has been mainly a male-dominated field for a long time – and still is – because people really don’t understand what the modern engineer does,” says Jennifer Kang-Mieler, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. “Younger students have this traditional view. They don’t know the new, exciting avenues within engineering.”

Dr. Kang-Mieler believes people association “engineering” with technical, civil and electrical engineering, but are not aware of departments like her own, biomedical engineering, that typically appeal to more women. The low 25 percent female graduate engineering enrollment at IIT is due, in part, to these perception issues.

Business schools see the same issues regarding antique perceptions and the lesser-known areas in which graduates can use their MBAs.

“The perception that tended to exist is that MBAs are for hardcore Wall Street functions,” says Kurt Ahlm, senior director of full-time admissions at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “We’re really trying to educate women more about the MBA and that it can apply to many more pathways, like nonprofits and education.”

Because women are in the dark about the truth concerning these stereotypically male fields, Carrie Brubaker, biomedical engineering PhD student at Northwestern University McCormick School of Engineering, says even understanding how opportunities align with interest require much back-end research on the part of women, whereas men might be more actively encouraged to pursue such degrees by professors, recruiters and colleagues.

“Sometimes people aren’t even aware that these programs exist,” says Carrie. “No one is actively telling women that they shouldn’t be in engineering programs, but you really have to go the extra mile to research the kind of work you’re interested in.”

Filling the Pipeline
But even after electing to pursue graduate-level education in engineering or business, women may find it challenging to enter a program where female faculty members are few and far between, and professional female role models are only slightly more common. The highest percentage of female faculty in the U.S. in graduate engineering sits around 16 percent, lower than the already minimal numbers of female faculty in business schools.

“Students look to see if there are people like them teaching,” says Melissa Booth, director of admissions and recruiting at DePaul University Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. “Being able to identify with the people in front of you to find career goals that are applicable to you is crucial.”