Women Make Major Inroads in Engineering at Dartmouth College

Nationwide, about 19 percent of all students who earn a bachelor’s degree in an engineering field are women. But at Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering, women have made significant progress. Over the past decade at Dartmouth, women have earned 31 percent of all bachelor of arts degrees awarded in engineering fields and 27 percent of bachelor of engineering degrees.

But most recently, the numbers are even better. This spring, 42 percent of the engineering majors in the graduating class are women. In next year’s graduating class, 48 percent of the students majoring in engineering disciplines are women.

Associate Professor of Engineering Karl Griswold told the Darmouth Engineer that “I’m thrilled to be a part of an institution experiencing this kind of paradigm shift in student enrollments. Engineering as a discipline, and in society, has for too long failed to effectively tap into the full potential of women as engineers and scientists.”