When the College of Engineering created the Women in Engineering (WIE) program in 1994, its goal was to recruit top female students into engineering majors at Georgia Tech, as well as to provide the resources and programs necessary to encourage their success and retention. The WIE programs are designed to address the barriers confronting females entering engineering majors and careers, such as the lack of information and misinformation regarding different engineering disciplines and how engineers contribute to our society.

The 2010 freshman class in Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering is 28 percent female, bringing the overall College of Engineering female representation to 24 percent! This is quite significant considering that the national average of females pursuing engineering degrees is approximately 18 percent of total engineering students. Research has shown that female engineering students achieve higher overall GPAs than their male counterparts in virtually every major, and yet they are disproportionately underrepresented in campus leadership positions. The first-year retention rate for female engineering students is greater than 90 percent, which is approximately 20 percent higher than the national average.

If your daughter is an engineering student, she should consider getting involved in the following retention programs offered by WIE:

Mentor & Mentee: A peer mentoring program, where freshmen are matched with juniors, and sophomores with seniors. These mentoring relationships offer students a connection with an older student who offers advice, friendship and guidance.

Excellence Awards Banquet: A benchmark program, where undergraduate female engineering students who have an overall GPA of 3.35 or higher are recognized at an annual banquet. Thirty-eight percent of the undergraduate female engineering students attended the EAB last year.

Scholarships: A network of approximately 24 corporate partners offers scholarships for outstanding female students, which are presented at the EAB. Scholarship levels have increased for each of the past successive three years by 20 percent in spite of a faltering economy.

For more information on WIE, visit our website at www.coe.gatech.edu/wie or follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GTwie.