I found an interesting study while cruising the internet today, and although it was written in 1995, I think it still holds true today for the most part:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/long3.pdf
In case you don't have half an hour to read through this, I'll summarize. The study compares men and women in Chemical Engineering at NC State. The goal was to shed light on the low numbers of women who become interested in engineering both in college and at the professional level. It has been suggested that this is due to natural abilities that men possess over women in the past, but this study does a pretty good job eliminating that factor. The conclusion that the author reaches is that women tend to shy away from engineering for a variety of reasons, but most are tied to their confidence. Women in engineering (as compared to men) tend to have lower confidence in both their natural ability and academic preparedness. The study also made a good point in that women tend to be ignored or interrupted more in group settings (a focus of this study). Another interesting statistic that this study brought to my attention is that around 20% of engineering students (men and women) believe it is too demanding to combine with family responsibilities.
I tend to agree with a lot of what this study concluded. First, I don't think that women avoid education or careers in math and engineering because they are not as qualified as men or because they are naturally less intelligent. I believe the reason is for more societal. Women are not brought up the same way as men in our culture. We tend to raise boys to compete and build things and be in charge, and girls to be dainty and pretty.
The problem with this tendency is that it repeats itself generationally. Daughters usually identify with their mother, and usually emulate them at some level. The study also showed that women beginning the engineering program were much more likely to have two parents who finished college than the men were. To compound the problem, there are very few women who teach engineering on the college level, and this can leave a real lack of suitable role models for college-aged women.
As the article suggests, there are some proposed solutions for the disparity of women in the industry, but I won't get into much detail there. I would like to say though, that men in engineering have a duty to respect and encourage our female counterparts (just like they would respect and encourage fellow males). I have seen how prevalent sexism can be among small groups of male engineers, and while some jokes may be appropriate, sexist jokes or real sexist discrimination is not appropriate or professional.
May 21, 2010
May 14, 2010
Personal Branding - Part 1
Creating a name for yourself in business, politics, or the arts has long been a goal of professionals, but the idea of personal branding has changed incredibly quickly in the past 10 years.
As the internet has grown, and evolved, social networking has come to rise, and is likely here to stay. Beginning with the personal website, spreading to weblogs (blogs), and now moving into social networking, the ability to reach any other person in the world's information and thoughts has drastically changed the way those of us who are connected live. I can now simultaneously send a message to 100 of my friends in the time it would have taken to address a single letter 20 years ago. Furthermore, I can post a blog entry or make a tweet in a few seconds that is instantly visible to any of the millions of internet users worldwide. People who would otherwise have no connection whatsoever can now find others with common interests or needs, and unite via the internet. People with little access to communication with the world outside their country can tweet via text message the state of their home's political unrest first hand. This vast array of information has its advantages and disadvantages, but today I'm going to focus on the personal advantages that the internet and social networking offers.
The concept of using the internet to create a name for yourself has been labeled "personal branding," and it basically covers any information that the internet offers about you. Do a quick google search for yourself. Try including your middle name or excluding it or just using your middle initial. If you have a facebook or twitter account, you're likely to see one of your profiles in the top results. If you have created a google account, you will also see that profile, and it's likely that any other variety of websites that you may have visited or commented on will appear.
It's a little scary to think that you are so easily accessed, but you have to think about the positive uses for this mass availability. The first obvious benefit is employment. If an employer gets your application, thinks about hiring you, and can quickly find more information on the internet about you, they may decide to call you for an interview or not based on this information. This is where information control becomes important. Trying to get your name higher on the list of google search results can increase your visibility, and make sure that potential employers can find you more quickly - assuming they find the information you want them to.
Another benefit is meeting people. As I said, social networks can connect two or more people who would otherwise have never met in real life, so it's good to use this to your advantage. Find companies that you may want to work for on twitter or facebook and follow them. Comment on their posts occasionally, just to make them aware of you, and ask them questions about their company. Imagine going into a job interview and telling them you saw their post this morning on twitter.
Rather than make this entry longer than it needs to be, I'll include some further reading. My personal recommendation for getting started is to create a LinkedIn account (basically like facebook for professional connections), start using twitter to follow employers and coworkers, and think about buying your domain name. It's a cheap investment, and you never know when it will pay off.
My Favorite Personal Branding Blog
LinkedIn
Twitter dos and don'ts
As the internet has grown, and evolved, social networking has come to rise, and is likely here to stay. Beginning with the personal website, spreading to weblogs (blogs), and now moving into social networking, the ability to reach any other person in the world's information and thoughts has drastically changed the way those of us who are connected live. I can now simultaneously send a message to 100 of my friends in the time it would have taken to address a single letter 20 years ago. Furthermore, I can post a blog entry or make a tweet in a few seconds that is instantly visible to any of the millions of internet users worldwide. People who would otherwise have no connection whatsoever can now find others with common interests or needs, and unite via the internet. People with little access to communication with the world outside their country can tweet via text message the state of their home's political unrest first hand. This vast array of information has its advantages and disadvantages, but today I'm going to focus on the personal advantages that the internet and social networking offers.
The concept of using the internet to create a name for yourself has been labeled "personal branding," and it basically covers any information that the internet offers about you. Do a quick google search for yourself. Try including your middle name or excluding it or just using your middle initial. If you have a facebook or twitter account, you're likely to see one of your profiles in the top results. If you have created a google account, you will also see that profile, and it's likely that any other variety of websites that you may have visited or commented on will appear.
It's a little scary to think that you are so easily accessed, but you have to think about the positive uses for this mass availability. The first obvious benefit is employment. If an employer gets your application, thinks about hiring you, and can quickly find more information on the internet about you, they may decide to call you for an interview or not based on this information. This is where information control becomes important. Trying to get your name higher on the list of google search results can increase your visibility, and make sure that potential employers can find you more quickly - assuming they find the information you want them to.
Another benefit is meeting people. As I said, social networks can connect two or more people who would otherwise have never met in real life, so it's good to use this to your advantage. Find companies that you may want to work for on twitter or facebook and follow them. Comment on their posts occasionally, just to make them aware of you, and ask them questions about their company. Imagine going into a job interview and telling them you saw their post this morning on twitter.
Rather than make this entry longer than it needs to be, I'll include some further reading. My personal recommendation for getting started is to create a LinkedIn account (basically like facebook for professional connections), start using twitter to follow employers and coworkers, and think about buying your domain name. It's a cheap investment, and you never know when it will pay off.
My Favorite Personal Branding Blog
Twitter dos and don'ts
May 7, 2010
Stop all the Asian Crap...I mean Carp!
This may be a little-known issue here in Tennessee, but it's gotten $78.5 million in tax-payer funding, and the attention of the White House to boot:
Asian Carp are invading the Great Lakes!
Rather than get into the specifics of this singular situation, I'll leave you the above link to check it out for yourself, and I'll address the more global issue of the spread of invasive species:
I grew up in Memphis, where Kudzu has become a dominant force in the ecosystem. While Kudzu is not native to the Americas, it has found a thriving environment with little natural competition here in the southern US. It swallows telephone poles, trees, fences, and sometimes houses, and while it may be cool to look at, this sort of invasive plant is clearly harmful to the natural ecosystem that it invades, and of course, this is just one example.
Since people began traveling, they have spread countless non-native plants and animals. It's impossible to tell how many natural ecosystems have been altered or destroyed by humans in the course of history, but it is now becoming something that we can do more quickly and unintentionally than ever before.
We have the ability to cross any continent, any ocean, and even go beyond our terraform in very reasonable lengths of time, and as we are beings in need of other supporting life-forms, we tend to bring some of our favorite animals and plants along whenever we travel or migrate. Global trade has only increased our ability to inadvertently ruin a foreign ecosystem by bringing in invasive species, and now that we have recognized this problem, action needs to be taken.
We are realizing more and more as humans that we are coming to the point in history where our actions could physically end the world. I'm not just talking about a nuclear holocaust, although that is a valid possibility, but also our continued disregard for maintaining stable ecosystems on the earth. Species variation is a key aspect of balance in the world as we know it, and while understanding the way the world works could lead us to the ability to recreate or restore ecosystems, we are destroying life on this planet faster than we are learning about it. The focus of science and engineering since the industrial revolution has been relatively micro in scale, and by that I mean that we try to invent new ways to improve our individual lives at that very moment. We tend to shrug off researching and understanding the long-term effects of what we may think are revolutionary, beneficial inventions.
I hold out hope for humanity though, and I think the more we can learn about this world, the more we can do to ensure its continued ecological health. In the mean time, we need to continue to move our public policies in a direction that is in favor of environmental improvement, including, the prevention of the spread of non-native invasive species.
Asian Carp are invading the Great Lakes!
Rather than get into the specifics of this singular situation, I'll leave you the above link to check it out for yourself, and I'll address the more global issue of the spread of invasive species:
I grew up in Memphis, where Kudzu has become a dominant force in the ecosystem. While Kudzu is not native to the Americas, it has found a thriving environment with little natural competition here in the southern US. It swallows telephone poles, trees, fences, and sometimes houses, and while it may be cool to look at, this sort of invasive plant is clearly harmful to the natural ecosystem that it invades, and of course, this is just one example.
Since people began traveling, they have spread countless non-native plants and animals. It's impossible to tell how many natural ecosystems have been altered or destroyed by humans in the course of history, but it is now becoming something that we can do more quickly and unintentionally than ever before.
We have the ability to cross any continent, any ocean, and even go beyond our terraform in very reasonable lengths of time, and as we are beings in need of other supporting life-forms, we tend to bring some of our favorite animals and plants along whenever we travel or migrate. Global trade has only increased our ability to inadvertently ruin a foreign ecosystem by bringing in invasive species, and now that we have recognized this problem, action needs to be taken.
We are realizing more and more as humans that we are coming to the point in history where our actions could physically end the world. I'm not just talking about a nuclear holocaust, although that is a valid possibility, but also our continued disregard for maintaining stable ecosystems on the earth. Species variation is a key aspect of balance in the world as we know it, and while understanding the way the world works could lead us to the ability to recreate or restore ecosystems, we are destroying life on this planet faster than we are learning about it. The focus of science and engineering since the industrial revolution has been relatively micro in scale, and by that I mean that we try to invent new ways to improve our individual lives at that very moment. We tend to shrug off researching and understanding the long-term effects of what we may think are revolutionary, beneficial inventions.
I hold out hope for humanity though, and I think the more we can learn about this world, the more we can do to ensure its continued ecological health. In the mean time, we need to continue to move our public policies in a direction that is in favor of environmental improvement, including, the prevention of the spread of non-native invasive species.
May 4, 2010
Hey! You got oil in my Gulf!
Since one of my first posts was pertaining to the coal-mining disaster in West Virginia, I find it fitting to say a little something about the recent oil leak that BP and the US Government are working on stopping in the Gulf of Mexico.
This is a horrible environmental disaster, and while it is not likely that humans will die as a direct consequence of the spill, it is extremely likely that people in the area, and possibly along the whole East Coast will feel the consequences of this disaster. I wish I were more experienced in the exact way that a deep-water oil rig works, but from my basic understanding, a leak has developed in the pipeline that brings oil from under the sea floor, and to the top of the rig, where it is transported to refineries, etc. This leak has been directly channeling oil from underground and into the sea for the past few days, and because of its depth (about a mile down), it has been very difficult to fix.
So, now the problem is two-fold: fixing the leak before it gets worse and simultaneously cleaning up the oil that has already escaped. Here are a couple interesting news stories related to the topic, if you feel like knowing a little more:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6430AR20100504
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-05-03-how-risky-is-the-dispersant-strategy-for-addressing-the-gulf-spi
Okay, so this is a big deal, but what does it mean for the oil industry in America, or even abroad? I think nothing. They will have to be careful to guard against this kind of failure in a deep-water rig again, but it's unlikely that our government will be able to (or even want to) cut back our domestic oil supplies. Personally, I don't think we should stop drilling anywhere just because of this accident, but it may make it a little scarier for some people who don't want off-shore drilling a few hundred feet from their back-yards.
Of course, oil drilling has brought us an amazing age of new technologies and transportation, so for that, it is assuredly an advancement, but it's never that simple. No engineer can design a perfect machine that will never fail, never break down, and never have an unforeseen problem. James Carville had a good point the other day on CNN. He said that no matter what kind of fuel we are using - coal, oil, nuclear, hydroelectric - we have a chance of disaster, and the more we use that kind of fuel, the greater our chances are for something to go wrong. There is no known perfectly safe, perfectly clean, perfectly unobtrusive way to produce energy on this earth. We can only keep improving our processes and looking for new advancements, but I feel confident that we will.
This is a horrible environmental disaster, and while it is not likely that humans will die as a direct consequence of the spill, it is extremely likely that people in the area, and possibly along the whole East Coast will feel the consequences of this disaster. I wish I were more experienced in the exact way that a deep-water oil rig works, but from my basic understanding, a leak has developed in the pipeline that brings oil from under the sea floor, and to the top of the rig, where it is transported to refineries, etc. This leak has been directly channeling oil from underground and into the sea for the past few days, and because of its depth (about a mile down), it has been very difficult to fix.
So, now the problem is two-fold: fixing the leak before it gets worse and simultaneously cleaning up the oil that has already escaped. Here are a couple interesting news stories related to the topic, if you feel like knowing a little more:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6430AR20100504
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-05-03-how-risky-is-the-dispersant-strategy-for-addressing-the-gulf-spi
Okay, so this is a big deal, but what does it mean for the oil industry in America, or even abroad? I think nothing. They will have to be careful to guard against this kind of failure in a deep-water rig again, but it's unlikely that our government will be able to (or even want to) cut back our domestic oil supplies. Personally, I don't think we should stop drilling anywhere just because of this accident, but it may make it a little scarier for some people who don't want off-shore drilling a few hundred feet from their back-yards.
Of course, oil drilling has brought us an amazing age of new technologies and transportation, so for that, it is assuredly an advancement, but it's never that simple. No engineer can design a perfect machine that will never fail, never break down, and never have an unforeseen problem. James Carville had a good point the other day on CNN. He said that no matter what kind of fuel we are using - coal, oil, nuclear, hydroelectric - we have a chance of disaster, and the more we use that kind of fuel, the greater our chances are for something to go wrong. There is no known perfectly safe, perfectly clean, perfectly unobtrusive way to produce energy on this earth. We can only keep improving our processes and looking for new advancements, but I feel confident that we will.
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