Shauna McKnight | Co-Editor in Chief

I recently read an article in the New York Times that asks the question, “Where are the women in math and science fields?” The author, Meg Urry, a physics major who studied at Yale, shares her experiences throughout college of being the only girl in her class and many of her experiences and thoughts really hit home for me.

I began my college career as a computer science major. In my first class, there was one other female who showed up for the first few class periods but then never came again. I continued to take computer science classes until my junior year, when, like many of us do, I changed my mind at the last minute to pursue digital media.

Finally choosing to switch majors after investing almost three whole years’ worth of time and energy into computer science was not an easy choice to make. I told myself that I would be a lot happier pursuing media. The truth is that I know I could’ve finished the program, but there were a lot of other factors that contributed to the situation I didn’t acknowledge as legitimate at the time. After reading the article by Urry, it made me realize maybe I’m not the only girl feeling the alienation you feel when you’re the only female in the room.

Urry said in her article: “At the end of four years, I was exhausted by all the lonely hours I spent catching up to my classmates, hiding my insecurities, struggling to do my problem sets while the boys worked in teams to finish theirs. I was tired of dressing one way to be taken seriously as a scientist while dressing another to feel feminine. And while some of the men I wanted to date weren’t put off by my major, many of them were.”

Not all of these things were true for me, but some of them were. Don’t get me wrong, I felt comfortable inside the classroom, and I wasn’t bullied by anyone; I just never really experienced a feeling of belonging. I always felt as though I was falling behind, because the only people I could compare myself to were the super-smart men who probably helped each other with their homework. This, coupled with my inability to ask for help, made it difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The times that I did ask for help from other students were good, although afterwards I always felt like the answer was so simple, and I was stupid for not being able to figure it out.

I decided to change direction because I was sick of feeling insecure, doubting my abilities, and feeling alone. I would literally sob every time I sat down to do a homework assignment because I felt so helpless. I desperately wanted to work with someone who was similar to me, who I could talk to about the latest episode of Glee instead of the new video game that came out. I just wasn’t even interested in the same things as my classmates.

Urry claims that more than half of women who start in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields end up quitting before they earn their degree. I think the only way to solve this problem is to get more women involved in these fields and facilitate ways for them to feel involved and welcome. We are still a long ways away from reaching gender equality in these fields, but a little encouragement and participation goes a long way.

Graphic by Aaron Burns