Women in S.T.E.M

A new club at Battlefield High School

Photo+Courtesy+of+Department+of+Defense+via+Creative+Commons

Photo Courtesy of Department of Defense via Creative Commons

Battlefield High School is thriving in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or more commonly known as S.T.E.M. Battlefield has a major Information Technology (IT) program in which students from all over Prince William County transfer to Battlefield to attend the program. Moreover, it has an outstanding FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) program.

Despite all of these amazing programs, there is still one flaw: there are not many females in these programs. The ratio difference of male to female has always been significantly major, especially when it comes to S.T.E.M. According to the College Factual website, “Only 7% of women who graduated from college in 2016 earned a degree that could be classified as S.T.E.M. S.T.E.M degrees are more popular with men, but still in the minority overall. About 15% of men who graduated in 2016 earned a S.T.E.M degree. The breakdown of S.T.E.M graduates in 2016 was 37% female and 63% male.” So, In order to try and end this significant difference, a couple of students at Battlefield joined together to create a club called Women in S.T.E.M.

One of the founders of the club, Sophomore Sara Amer, explained the purpose of this club “It is to encourage more girls and women to pursue their interests in S.T.E.M, and to be confident leaders in the field. This year we are working with elementary and middle schools to get more younger girls involved with S.T.E.M and to create opportunities for girls in our community.” She also mentioned how they hit the ground running by “starting out very strong with over 30 members already, proving that women in S.T.E.M is a topic that needs to be discussed and needs to be promoted,” They want women to be a “motivated group and ready to tackle any challenge the world may throw at [them], and we are ready to succeed with flying colors.” They meet the first Wednesday of each month and hope more students join.

Sophomore Aditi Shastri is part of the Battlefield Robotics team. She noticed among her teammates that “there are far fewer females than males, especially on the technical side of robotics. Personally speaking, I am one of two girls on the build subteam though there are more girls on the business and outreach sub teams” She is the Vice President of the club.

Many people have worked hard to make the Women in S.T.E.M club become a reality. They only hope to go up from here. They have multiple social media accounts in which students and staff can follow to keep up for important information.

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