[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

-Now, the discussion of "how" best to "grow" more females toward STEM (and still maintain one's soul, integrity, insert any other such parameter here) becomes the part of this discussion that was originally called for.

This is the key topic that should be discussed in this thread. Every team has their own reasons for running a team the way they do. Jane mentioned several dozen posts back that its not uncommon for college students to change their majors as they progress through their education. When referring to females in engineering/science I would hope they are choosing to do this based on a genuine change of heart and not because they feel they will not be able to succeed in a mainly male driven environment.

This got me thinking about all girls teams and how they may or may not deal with this feeling. Certainly an all girls team will give females a better chance to get more involved in the program. What they won't provide is the window into the way the world really is. Now, I'm not sure if at a high school age this is a good thing or a bad thing, and I certainly don't agree with the world being that way, but change will not happen overnight. This is something a female pursuing a STEM field will have to endure.

To me, it would seem a girl who spent 4 years on an all girls FRC team vs a girl who spent 4 years on a co-ed FRC team would come out with different experiences, this is for certain. However, if the environment is established by the team and mentors to allow girls to succeed in a co-ed environment than I would argue the girl on the co-ed team had the better experience (this is all very hypothetical of course). More than likely this girl would have experienced the hardships many of the female mentors and engineers have spoken about in this thread. When this girl gets to college or becomes an intern or even gets a real job, she may have already had to overcome some gender barriers in her career. Maybe this life experience that has been instilled in her will truly make her stick in STEM.

Just some food for thought..

-Brando