In the fall 2021 semester, women represented about 16 percent of all engineering and computer science students at Sacramento State University according to Kevan Shafizadeh, interim dean of the college of engineering and computer science. 

That’s 3,874 males to 728 females in the college. 

Aiyana Garcia, a junior civil engineering major, said that the gap between males and females can be a little intimidating. She also served as the secretary for the Society of Women Engineers at Sac State last semester.

“Right now in one of my dynamics courses, I’m one of the two female students in that class,” Garcia said. 

SWE at Sac State is a club for women and men in the engineering field to come together and make a space that’s positive for all genders.

“It’s important to find another group of female engineering students and kind of build a community with them,” Garcia said. ”That’s what kind of helps you get through the hard stuff.” 

Garcia said that being a role model for others, especially her own younger sisters, is the thing that keeps her determined to succeed in her field. 

“You don’t see people who look like you in the field,” Garcia said. “I’m just trying my best to be as involved as I can and be the best version of myself in this field so that when they get to this point, they have someone to look up to.”

Mehak Walia, a senior mechanical engineering major, was also a part of the board for SWE at Sac State. She said that being part of the small percentage of women in engineering makes her feel that she is doing her part to help reduce the disparity. 

Walia said she chooses to forget about the ratio and looks to focus only on making a change so that more female engineers feel comfortable to start showing up. 

Inspiration for Walia comes through professional female engineers sharing their experiences through social media.

“In today’s society, they’ve got more engineering bloggers and computer science bloggers,” Walia said. “I love to see them shine like that on social media.”

Walia said she wants to be able to make a voice for other female engineers to know and understand the field in that way.

According to fifth-year engineering major Alyssa Rendon, the key to reducing the gap means talking about it more.

Rendon said it’s important to have those difficult conversations about gender and about how to be transparent about recognizing those biases someone can hold against others.

Gallery • 3 Photos

Senior computer engineering major Alyssa Rendon in front of the mural at Santa Clara Hall on March 2. Rendon said she’s used to there only being two to three girls in her engineering classes, and that that’s how it’s always been for a majority of her time at Sac State. (Photo by Alexis Perales)

She said there have been situations where she feels her respect and success have been questioned by males reducing her to her gender and ethnicity. Rendon talks about times when she has given an idea to a group only to be shut down, then her idea gets reintroduced as someone else’s idea. 

“People like to go make comments negating my success to being a diversity hire, and that’s just really frustrating,” Rendon said.

Rendon said it’s important to know one’s worth in these types of situations and finds self-advocacy to be crucial.

“When I feel I don’t get the same amount of respect from my peers, I advocate for myself more and I’m not afraid to speak up for myself,” Rendon said.

Rendon has learned to make a place for herself so that can succeed and not succumb to the male-dominated field. 

For Sac State, electrical engineering professor, Atousa Yazdani, the large gap between men and women has always been represented even when she was in college. She talks about how she thought she ended up in the wrong room when she first walked into one of her university classes. 

She gradually got used to the mostly male classes and she hopes that her students end up doing so as well.

“I never had a female student that wasn’t hard-working,” Yazdani said. “They are always hard-working and very respectful, but the self-confidence is a lot lower and I don’t know why.” “That reservedness makes the best of them.”

Yazdani said she found her confidence in the field when she did well on an exam in her undergrad that her male colleagues didn’t score as well on.

Yazdani recounted when she first became a mother, and at the time began to question her future in the field. 

“It’s a very demanding job,” Yazdani said. “I think that’s a pity honestly, for the engineering platforms, that if you’re pregnant or if you have a child that needs your attention, you’re basically out of the game.” 

Yazdani said she thinks this may be a reason why there are more men in the field than women. In her words, engineering is a very time-consuming major, and in Yazdani’s opinion, that might be the reason why it’s always been male-dominated. She said she feels it is easier for men to tackle the issues presented by engineering work, and that women are largely excluded.

“It’s not that they feel like, ‘Oh, because guys are here, I’m scared,’” Yazdani said. “It’s not that, it’s the fact that at some point in life, I think girls become more emotional, more attached to some mental things that guys don’t.” 

Yazdani said she wants more female students to be interested in engineering and to be able to put their minds into it to achieve more in the field.