Melissa Setiawan is out to bust some science fiction. Like the one that says women shouldn’t enter engineering or high-tech careers because they’re too arts-oriented. Or that an IT job means sitting in an lonely office cubicle endlessly punching code into a computer.

“There are a lot of myths that still need to be de-mystified,” says the 21-year-old University of Calgary student.

As president of the Women In Science and Engineering club at the University of Calgary, you could say Setiawan is one WISE woman. She grits her teeth when she hears the same old fables which may discourage young girls from considering a career run down the information highway.

“A lot of women get really intimidated by (them), and they don’t even consider going into these careers,” says Setiawan.

The WISE club was formed in 1990 to foster and promote the participation of women in sciences and engineering. Last year, it topped 1,200 members including faculty and is actively signing up more this semester. WISE offers career talks, guest lecturers, physics tutorials, summer job workshops and a program that allows students to mingle with practising scientists and engineers.

Yet some of the old stereotypes persist.

“We get a lot of male students who at first think we’re a feminist club,” shrugs Setiawan.

But it may surprise some to learn that about half the members of Women In Science and Engineering are men, who are accepted into the group on equal terms. “It sort of defeats the purpose if you isolate women,” explains Setiawan. “We have to learn to deal with males in our world, and that’s the reality of life. And the men that join the club obviously support our mandate.”

Women make up only 15 to 20 per cent of the computer science students at Canadian universities, and about 20 per cent of engineering students. That’s a concern for Dr. Elizabeth Cannon, a professor of geomatics engineering at the U of C and prairie region chair for the Petro-Canada/National Women in Science and Engineering Research Council.

“We have to do a better job of showing what opportunities are out there” in IT and other science or engineering-based careers, said Cannon, a faculty advisor to the WISE club.

“It’s not just about being by yourself at a computer. It’s being on the leading edge, really developing the tools for society to lead us into this century, and keeping us at the forefront.”

Research shows that young women will often ask how their career choices will allow them to contribute to society, or how a science career would be applicable and relevant to the world around them, she says.

One of the initiatives championed by both Cannon and WISE to get young girls interested in such careers is the Explore IT program. This annual conference, coming on Nov. 14, brings Grade 9 girls onto the U of C and SAIT campuses to experience hands-on IT learning and show them that computers can be more than just windows into cyberspace.

“They see the creative side, the opportunities and meet women role models in the field,” as well as seeing leading-edge equipment and facilities, says Cannon. The WISE club is also launching its own mentoring program this year, as well as introducing a new poster program to get their message out to young girls across Alberta.

For Setiawan, the inspiration to pursue a career in science came from her dad, a Calgary engineer and president of RNG Protech. Both of her younger sisters are now taking engineering courses at the U of C.

“He always says: ‘You don’t have to be a man to be in science,’ ” she says.

She sees a positive future for young women like herself who want to launch themselves into science, medical, engineering or IT careers without the baggage of gender discrimination our outdated notions of what a woman can or cannot do.

“There’s always going to be the odd company in any city where a women will experience obstacles . . . feeling that she’s a minority, or excluded, or that her ideas are not valued as much,” she says. “But I think things are slowly changing, and are looking optimistic.”

Web Watch:
www.explore-IT.org/