Editorial - Another school year ends and many high schools seniors will be following their dreams as they head off to college, while college graduates leave behind some of the best years of their lives and start counting down the years to retirement! As I reflect on my own college graduation 30 years ago, so much has changed, yet so much remains the same.

Females aren’t the oddity in engineering schools anymore, at least not as freshmen. And while the colleges of engineering can boast of diversity among the first year students, the attrition rate among women and minorities is unacceptably high. Perhaps it reflects an aggressive recruiting campaign and therefore, many may be attracted initially, but realize early on that engineering is not their passion. Or perhaps, engineering education has not changed to meet the needs of a diverse student population who learn, communicate, and interact differently than the stereotypical engineering students of previous generations, so the profession loses them to other majors. From my experience and the women of my generation, you had to really want or need to stick it out in engineering school to make it to graduation. I like to say that we “survived” engineering school at a time when women didn’t have many options in professional careers and the help wanted ads still were divided into “Help Wanted Men” and “Help Wanted Women.” Another good difference is that the discriminatory practices of prior years, especially with regards to pay inequity, appear to be fading.

I encounter a wide cross-section of college students through many of my activities. They have incredible talents, ambitious goals, creative minds, and diverse interests. Their expectations from a career include not only great salaries, but also a sense of fulfillment, of making a difference, of recognition of their contributions, and they readily acknowledge that changing employers or changing professions may be needed over the course of their careers to obtain these lofty goals.

If civil engineering is going to continue to attract students, some of which have so many paths they could pursue, then we need to get involved at all stages of a child’s development. Consider accepting an opportunity to speak at a career day, or work a booth at Jazz Fest for the ASCE children’s area, or judge a science fair, or encourage a young person to job shadow at your company.

To reach those who are enrolled in engineering school, consider volunteering to be a guest speaker, or to give a tour of a current project. You can help make engineering come alive and show students the hands-on side of civil engineering. Unfortunately, the first two years of engineering curriculum are heavy in math and science, regardless whether a student is interested in graduate research or being a practitioner. Consider how you could demonstrate the principles of math, science, and engineering being applied outside the classroom.

A recent article in USA Today reported that the teaching profession will face a profound number of vacancies as the Baby Boomers enter retirement in the next ten years. Engineering will not be any different. For America to rely upon its own brainpower, it needs to attract and retain its youth into the professions. Will civil engineering be able to compete for the best and brightest minds?

- Deborah D Keller, P.E.

This editorial was featured in the May 2009 Louisiana Civil Engineer Journal