A Seat at the STEM Table

The first time I walked into the machine shop on campus, the air felt metallic—oil, hot steel, and something like nerves. On the wall, safety posters promised certainty: goggles, gloves, rules. But nothing on those walls explained the quiet calculus of being the only woman in the room, trying to look as if you belong while your pulse insists you don’t.

I had chosen engineering because I loved the honesty of it. If a bridge stands, it stands. If a circuit works, it works. And yet the deeper I went into labs and group projects, the more I realized engineering isn’t only governed by physics. It’s also governed by people—by who gets heard, who gets mentored, who is assumed competent before the first word is spoken.

The Mirror Called “Merit”

By sophomore year, I learned to brace for small moments that landed heavy. A lab partner who automatically handed me the note-taking. A TA who praised my “organization” but directed technical questions to the guy beside me. In team meetings, I watched my ideas float past like paper boats—until someone else repeated them with a lower voice and received nods like applause.

I told myself it was all in my head. That I was being sensitive. That if I worked harder, I could out-run whatever discomfort I felt. But the more I tried to “prove” myself, the more I began to understand something messier than capability: confidence is not distributed fairly.

When I read Engineers Australia’s statement for International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2026, it felt like seeing my private unease reflected in public language. Their Chief Engineer, Katherine Richards, noted the urgency: “At a time when STEM jobs are rapidly growing, we must ensure women are not left behind.” The article cited UNESCO’s estimate that women make up roughly one third of the world’s researchers, yet in Australia only 16 percent of qualified engineers in the labour force are women. Those numbers didn’t just describe a gap; they described a pattern I had been living inside.

When the Lab Got Loud

The semester that almost pushed me out was the one with the capstone prototype. We were building a compact device meant to improve water quality monitoring—tiny sensors, real-world stakes, and the kind of work that made me feel, for once, that engineering could be gentle and world-facing.

But our team dynamic soured. The deadlines tightened; the room got colder. One teammate began “helping” by rewriting my code without telling me. Another insisted on presenting results I had gathered. I started showing up early and staying late, just to avoid negotiating for my own work.

The conflict wasn’t dramatic; it was corrosive. It taught me how quietly bias can operate—through assumptions, through interruptions, through the unspoken belief that leadership has a certain voice and a certain face. Engineers Australia’s article named the invisible weights I’d been carrying: “unacknowledged assumptions, bias and imposter syndrome.” Reading that, I felt a strange relief. Not because the problem was solved—but because the problem had a name.

Learning to Ask for Structural Change

Instead of trying to be smaller, I did something unfamiliar: I asked for help. I met with our faculty supervisor and proposed a clearer division of responsibilities, documented ownership of modules, and a rotation for who would speak during weekly updates. It felt unromantic, almost bureaucratic—but it worked. The prototype improved, and so did the atmosphere.

More importantly, I learned that fairness isn’t a personal favor. It’s a design choice.

That’s why one line from the Engineers Australia research stayed with me: seven in ten engineers with children believe flexible working arrangements would most improve career progression. Flexibility isn’t “special treatment.” It’s proof that someone imagined a workplace where talent doesn’t have to be purchased with burnout—and where brilliance isn’t limited to people with the fewest responsibilities.

The Future I Want to Build

We presented our monitoring device at the end of term. When I stepped up to explain the signal processing, my hands still shook, but my voice didn’t. I wasn’t asking to be included anymore. I was practicing inclusion—by insisting that processes, credit, and opportunity be shared deliberately.

Engineers Australia called for government, industry, and educators to work together so women and girls have “a seat at the STEM table.” I used to think that meant inviting more women into existing rooms. Now I think it also means building better rooms: where merit isn’t a mirror that only reflects the familiar; where teams are balanced because outcomes are better; where AI and emerging technologies are shaped by many lives, not a narrow slice of them.

I’m applying to college not just to learn engineering—but to help engineer a culture where the next person who walks into the machine shop breathes easier than I did.

Source Link

Engineers Australia — “Engineers Australia calls for inclusivity across STEM on International Day of Women” (Feb 11, 2026):
https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/news-and-media/2026/02/engineers-australia-calls-inclusivity-across-stem-international-day-women