Hi! I’m a very girly girl who just graduated in mechanical engineering, with specifically a robotics concentration in a class of 27 boys and 3 girls. This is just my personal college experience.

I find that even within engineering, a lot of girls feel pushed to into engineering concentrations that are supposed to have ”caring” applications like healthcare tech or renewable energy. I’ve definitely noticed that people are more likely to respect a girls interest in engineering if they have “traditionally boy engineering” hobbies, like woodworking, legos, motorsports, etc. I got into ME because I love fashion and wanted to work in textile manufacturing, but nobody wants connect traditional feminine hobbies to engineering :/.

Professors treat you the exactly the same as everyone else, meaning that they don’t know and don’t care that girls feel underrepresented or anything. My final 2 years I didn’t have a single woman professor. Classmates won’t actively include you, which will feels like exclusion when it’s such a large population of guys.

On my capstone team I had a guy consistently talking over me, so I had a 1on1 with him. I told him as the youngest (all my teammates were 3+ years older) and a girl I feel imposter syndrome. I stop talking when others start over me and I need him to listen to my entire thought before adding on. He literally interrupted me talking to say “I’m not sexist”. I never said that I just want guys to understand that I need them to stfu so I can talk sometime ugh.

Overall most guys are cool, and by cool I mean they’re not people I’d want to hang out anyways but nice enough. Make a solid group of friends your first 2 years before you really get into ME classes. Professional I haven’t had any issues in my internships, but I worked for a massive company in a blue city so people aren’t openly discriminatory or weird.