Editorial: Mentoring for female STEM students should start earlier

Women majoring in male-dominated fields such as technology want to know if getting a great job…Women majoring in male-dominated fields such as technology want to know if getting a great job is based on performance and talent, or if it’s based on the informal rules of the “boy’s club.” An online mentorship program sponsored by Harvey Mudd College aims to help women get those answers, The New York Times recently reported.

The online mentorship program, titled WitsOn (Women in Technology Sharing Online), is geared toward women interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. Although the program is especially designed for women, it allows both female and male students to engage in dialogue with about 300 women who work in STEM fields. Prominent lead mentors include Mae Jemison, the first African-American female astronaut.

It’s interesting that the six-week program functions similarly to massive online classes, because it’s conducted solely over the Internet and there is no formal curriculum. The main goal of the program is to connect students with mentors by allowing students to ask questions; the predominantly-female students have so far asked questions about the existence of sexism in STEM fields, balancing work with family life, and tips on finding a job.

We strongly support this program’s goal. Women are historically underrepresented in the STEM fields, and especially so in technology and engineering. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, women hold less than 25 percent of STEM jobs, despite women holding about half of the total jobs in the U.S. And it’s not because women are intrinsically poor at math or science. According to a study done by the American Association of University Women, negative stereotypes about women’s abilities in math and science can affect female students’ abilities and aspirations in these areas, even for women who like these subjects and are confident in their abilities.

However, we think it’s unfairly limiting to open a mentoring program for undergraduates who have already declared majors in STEM fields. In order to increase the number of women and other underrepresented people in the STEM fields, this type of mentoring should start much earlier than college.

This type of program could be instrumental in exposing students in middle or high school to the STEM fields while their interests are still developing. For adolescent girls, being able to interact with prominent women in STEM fields could help them to consider courses of study or careers in fields that they might not have necessarily considered. Plus, having a positive mentoring relationship with an established STEM professional could help girls overcome the stereotypes that women aren’t good at math or science or can’t succeed in these fields.

Although we support mentoring programs for women, we’re not sure how effective a massive online program is. While the logistics would be more difficult to arrange, we think that matching mentors one-to-one with students could be more effective than having students ask questions in an online forum. That way, students could ask more specialized questions and engage in a more personal dialogue. Despite the limitations of the WitsOn program, we believe that engaging women with influential female role models could help to close the gender gap in these fields.