Ángela Buxó is one of the ten girls in her group in the Computer Engineering degree taught at the Barcelona Faculty of Informatics (FIB) of the UPC. The fifty companions who complete it are boys. Ángela knew that she was entering studies with few girls, but she still expected that she would be worse and she did not expect to find more than five classmates. Discussing it with upperclassmen, she believes that she has been “lucky.” In fact, when she opted for these studies, everyone made comments to her like “you'll be the only girl” or “whew, you'll be surrounded by boys.” Fortunately, they were comments that did not affect her, but she believes that they may have influenced other students who have chosen a career.
She was clear that she had a tendency towards technical studies, close to mathematics. She learned about all the engineering and she opted for computer science because she saw “application and meaning” in it. The fact that it was a degree with little presence of girls did not condition it. “Technology is the future,” said the student.
Like her, little by little more girls are inclined to choose a career in the STEAM field, although there is still a long way to go. This 2023-2024 academic year, girls make up 16% of the students who have started the FIB Computer Engineering degree. A small figure that, if compared to other years ago, has been growing. And that's how Angela sees it. “There are few women, but in each course there are more.”
This slight upward trend in this degree also occurs in the rest of the STEAM studies offered by the UPC. 31% of the students who have enrolled in the first year of a degree at this university are women. 3.4 points above the percentage obtained five years ago. Optics and Optometry is the degree with the most women enrolled in the first year (76%), followed by the degree in Landscaping (with 64% girls), studies taught jointly by the Higher Technical School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB) and the School of Agri-Food and Biosystems Engineering of Barcelona (EEABB). And they are followed by the degree in Architecture at the Architecture schools of Barcelona and Vallès (ETSAV), where 62% are girls in the first year. These are the degrees in which the enrollment of women exceeds 60% and contrasts with the degrees with less female presence.
At the Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering of Barcelona (ETSETB), the enrollment data for first-year girls is slightly higher than in previous years, with an average of between 20 and 23%. The proportion of students does not exceed the 25% that we would like to achieve, but it is increasing. “It costs us a lot, but the School and the University are carrying out different initiatives to turn the situation around,” says Alba Pagès, director of the School. The degree studies in Telecommunications Technology and Services Engineering, with around 200 places offered each year, this year reach almost 23% of girls in new enrollment. And in the degree in Electronic Telecommunications Engineering, studies with 50 places, there are about 17% of grades, while in Physics Engineering, which this year has gone from 40 to 44 places, it is above 30% of girls.
The causes are difficult to identify. Alba Pagès points out that it is possible that there are fewer girls who take the technology subject in high school, which is more related to engineering. “Maybe girls are more called Physics Engineering because they have known what physics is in high school,” explains Pagès. Furthermore, the profile of the graduates in all these studies is transversal and “allows them to enter very diverse professions,” adds the director of ETSETB.
Bring engineering into schools
To encourage girls' interest in STEAM studies, ETSETB carries out many initiatives, such as the “An engineering in each school” program, coordinated by Professor Paz Morillo, which consists of searching for female telecommunications engineers in primary school students through lectures.
The range of actions of the University to promote technical vocations is very wide. Another of the already consolidated programs is “Here STEAM UPC”, through which engineers, technologists and scientists, teachers and researchers from the UPC work side by side with primary schools and secondary schools throughout Catalonia to incorporate didactic proposals that promote scientific and technical vocations in the classroom, from a gender perspective. “Here STEAM UPC” celebrates its 15th edition, so far 5,500 students from 63 schools and institutes in Catalonia have participated. 22 Catalan centers take part in this course.
“If we want new inventions to take into account the gender perspective, we have to be present”
The number of girls in ICT studies is increasing slightly, explains Alba Pagès, and from the UPC it is clear that actions must continue to be promoted to promote the world of engineering, one of the driving forces of society,” she adds. The director of l'ETSETB recalls that “engineering is degrees where ingenuity is used to improve the lives of people and society,” and adds: “If we want advances and new inventions to take into account gender perspective, we have to be present.”
