Hello Rebecca,

Have no fear! I think a lot of us struggled in Physics courses. I also worried that because I didn’t “get” all of my core classes such as Physics or Statics that I might be in the wrong profession. I had to fight very hard to earn my “c” in statics and wondered if this meant I should have majored in English.

However, I found that other engineering classes that weren’t so physics-based definitely piqued my interest and made me feel more secure that I had chosen a good profession. I enjoyed highways and traffic classes, and I also enjoyed some of my environmental coursework where I learned about anaerobic sludge digestion. These were the same classes that the A-students in Physics didn’t do so well in! I think everyone is balanced differently.

I am really glad I got my degree in civil engineering, by the way. I’ve worked in several different genres because the degree is so versatile. I’ve worked for transportation firms designing roadways and culverts. I’ve worked for land development firms designing subdivision layouts where I graded the lots for the houses and designed the water, stormwater and sewer systems. I’ve worked for an environmental firm where I did noise pollution studies and site assessments. And now I work for the Idaho Transportation Department where I’m their pavement management engineer. I had all of these opportunities because I got this degree and it gives me so many choices.

Go to your physics professor and admit you’re struggling, and see if you can get some help from him/her during office hours. A good tutor or learning lab on campus never hurt, either. Study hard and I’m sure you’ll do well. And I personally thought this degree was very well worth it.

Warm regards from another engineer that struggled mightily in Physics,

Karen

Hi Melissa, How exciting to hear that another woman is choosing the profession of civil engineering! Congratulations. It'll be a tough and challenging ride through college, but I'm sure you're more than capable, and that you'll really enjoy your classwork. As to your question regarding why more women don't choose engineering, my thinking is that it's mostly because women before them never chose it. To me, it's like why most men don't go into nursing. It's viewed as a field for the opposite sex, so most people don't even let it enter their considerations when choosing a major in college. It takes a strong, inquisitive mind to fight against these built in stereotypes and ask why CAN'T I do engineering? That's what so many of us did, and what we try to encourage other women to think. There is no job out there that we can't do- and more of us every year realize that engineering is a valid and enjoyable choice for us. I'm very happy you're looking into the profession! I really enjoy all the different things I can do with my degree. As for your senior project, there are several different ways you could get your class involved. If your interests lay in highways and traffic, you could present a video of a car crash and have the class divide up into teams to perform the calculations of how fast the car was going and if it was exceeding the speed limit. If you are more interested in structures, you could ask the class to build bridges out of certain materials and vote on whose bridge is most likely to fail under a certain amount of weight, and then take the bridges out and break them. If your interest is more in materials, you could have them design concrete mixes and calculate the slump that each concrete will have, and then take them outside, have them mix the concrete and see whose is most accurate (and if you have more time, you could always have them build concrete cylinders, cure them for 28 days, and then go to your local college and have them broken at the lab to see whose could withstand the most weight.) I hope these ideas help you, and I wish you the best of luck on your journey into engineering! -Karen Strauss