While the feminist movement has helped women break through many glass ceilings, the science math and technical fields are still reminding women that this is still very much a man’s world. However, with programs such as FEMME, an extensive four-week summer program within the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Women in Engineering and Technology Initiative, women are beginning to make strides into these male dominated professions as well.
The FEMME Program was designed to give girls a chance to excel in science, math, engineering and technology courses, which are traditionally pushed on boys. This year 58 of the 120 students selected were from Union City. The programs accepts girls from grades four through eight based on their standardized test scores, transcripts, teacher recommendations and an interview with FEMME program directors.
The girls attend the FEMME Program on the NJIT campus in Newark from Monday through Friday from July 9 through August 3.
Making science fun
The program, which only accepted high school freshmen when it started in 1981, soon changed its focus to younger students in 1992.
“We found that between the third and the fourth grade is when a child is asked to change their learning process from concrete learning to abstract learning,” said FEMME program Director Rosa Cano.
“In the fourth grade, girls have the attitude that they can do anything,” said Cano. “They are totally 100 percent confident. You see that changing as they get older.”
Each grade level concentrates a different type of engineering. The students begin with Environmental Science in the fourth grade level, and moving on to Aerospace engineering in the fifth grade level, Mechanical Engineering in the sixth grade level, chemical engineering in the seventh grade level and biomedical engineering in the eighth grade level.
Each class also includes lessons in computer science, communications and public speaking and mathematics. Kristian Torres, a seventh grade student at Woodrow Wilson School who is studying Mechanical Engineering with the FEMME Program, is looking forward to building a rollercoaster before this summer’s program is over. “We actually get to do the experiments here,” said Karina Rivera, a seventh grade student at Edison School who has attended the FEMME program for the past three years. “In school we only get to listen.”
“This program is not only to learn,” said Jennifer Maldonado, a seventh grade student at Woodrow Wilson School. “I think that I can get used to this more than school.”
No boys
In an all-girl environment, the students do not fell embarrassed when they answer a question incorrectly. And they are more willing to ask questions.
“Seeing women in the field will help them feel confident that they can get into the field and do very well,” said Cano, whose background is in chemistry. “In this environment, no one is going to tell them that they cannot be an engineer.”
Cano said that seeing women in teaching roles gives students female role models in the science and technology fields.
“When you move into the secondary grades, their [science and technology] role models are generally males,” said Cano. “But here we have females in those roles.”
The FEMME program hires female college students studying science or technology programs in college as teaching assistants along with the female faculty.
The program costs a total of $2,000 per student to attend. NJIT provides $1,400 of that cost per student and the student is responsible for the remaining $600. In Union City, the Board of Education picks up that cost and also provides transportation to and from the Newark campus.
The $2,000 includes all of the students’ books, lab supplies, filed trips and lunches.