Women Say STEM Subjects Aren’t Just For Men

In recent years there has been a national push to get young people interested in science and math, to prevent the United States from falling behind other countries. In 2009, the Programme for International Student Assessment ranked the U.S. 17 in science and 25 in math out of 34 countries.

A 2011 U.S. Department of Commerce report "Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation," says although women fill close to half of all jobs in the U.S. economy, they hold less than 25 percent of STEM jobs, despite an increase of college- educated women in the last decade that have increased their share of the overall workforce.

But there are some women at Howard who are defying the odds.

Genetta Reeves, a junior math major, chemistry minor from Atlanta is one of those women. She is passionate about mathematics and stresses the importance of getting children interested in the subject.

This past summer she worked with Howard's Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program, serving as a counselor, mentor and tutor to high school students taking math, computer science and engineering courses.

"It felt really good to be able to help with that," she said. "I was giving to them what I had gotten from Howard," Reeves said.

She originally became interested in math because her mom always hand-picked her instructors in elementary school. Choosing teachers who made math fun and easy to understand.

Howard Ph.D graduate student and part-time lecturer Monique Peters believes getting children interested is essential, but so is keeping their spirits high as they mature through school.

"Often times the hindrance in how students understand mathematics deals with their confidence level. If you can get those up then that can be the foundation to allowing them to understand," Peters said.

Peters wasn't always a math whiz.  "When I was in high school I used to hate math, I had a teacher who would always start out with it's so simple to see. One day I remember raising my hand and saying no it's not simple, I don't understand," she said.

One day in her undergraduate freshman class it all clicked and she's been hooked ever since.

Senior computer science major, business management minor Carmyn Robey, had a different inspiration for going into STEM. Always motivated by a challenge, Robey found it interesting that she was always the "token female" in her high school classes.

"There was always a lot of pressure on me to do my best and my teacher was a male also and he didn't really expect for me to do well in the course. I was motivated to prove people wrong," she said.

Out of thousands of students, Robey was the only woman who took the advanced placement exam in her city. For the first three years of college, she was on eight different scholarships, which she qualified for because of her gender, race, grade point average and major.

She has been working at Goldman Sachs for the last three years, dealing with information security and risk analysis and has already accepted a job with Johnson & Johnson post-graduation.

Despite her accomplishments, Robey admits that women face gender discrimination and has personally faced racial discrimination at a former company.

She points out that even the engineering building at Howard there is only one women's restroom in comparison to the five men's restrooms. Students are working with the dean to convert one of the men's restrooms into one for women.

Robey has pushed herself this far because she feels it is important for women not be easily intimidated.

Also, since they're in such high demand, there's money to be made in STEM jobs for women.

"Women with STEM jobs earned 33 percent more than comparable women in non-STEM jobs – considerably higher than the STEM premium for men. As a result, the gender wage gap is smaller in STEM jobs than in non-STEM jobs," said the U.S. Department of Commerce report.

And with current programs placed throughout different communities, there is still hope for the future.

According to College Board results for 2010-2011 AP tests, African American and Hispanic students increased in areas of math, science and English by 216 percent for passing scores.

While there are a lot of opportunities for women to excel in STEM, junior chemistry major Breaunnah Bloomer knows that you still have to take initiative.

"My mentors told me that organic chemistry is very much dominated by white males and that its very hard to get in being a female, versus being an African-American female, which makes it ten times harder," she said.

Hurdles ahead haven't deterred her. Last summer she did an internship with the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Energy in Los Alamos National Lab doing research on finding substitutes for cement to reduce the greenhouse effect.

She hopes to go on to get a doctorate at Georgia Tech University in material chemistry. From there she wants to work as an instrument scientist and move into developing her own research group and product at an industrial company.

Howard offers various programs for all majors involved in the STEM field and helps students to succeed with internships, scholarships and study abroad programs.