Though traditionally considered the territory of guys, engineering and other classes such as robotics have seen a dramatic increase in girls taking the course with a 50-100 percent increase in most classes.

“It brings a new perspective, the girls bring a different perspective and sometimes different motivations,” engineering teacher Brian Lidington said. “Most of the time the girls also tend to be more serious, and probably more disciplined.”

Because engineering is typically a male course, the women enrolled have to be competitive.

“The girls, for the most part make up a smaller part of the class but they’re always, almost every one of them is in the top of the class in terms of motivation and discipline,” Lidington said. “They get stuff done. [The girls] are good at [engineering], consistently, probably because they really want to take it, if they’re girls in engineering they’re serious about it.”

However, being the minority in a class is not always easy.

“[Engineering] can be interesting at times, seeing how I am the only junior and only girl,” junior Sienna Scalf said. “But overall it is a very fun class. It is interesting to me. I like the idea of building things, I guess.”

Many of the girls have already made impacts with their creations.

“I had one girl, Abby Holmes, who did a filtration system for underprivileged countries that she designed last year,” Lidington said. “And then I have another girl this year who’s doing, like, housing that is going to be really cheap and easy to put up that will be better than what they have.”

Scalf is designing the housing that will assist people who don’t have much money in building a house that is structurally sound.

“I am trying to find a relatively cheap way to provide housing for those who have been affected by natural disaster,” Scalf said.

Though there are few of them, the girls think in terms of making the world better.

“The girls tend to think in terms of helping the environment, helping people, so they definitely bring sometimes a more mature aspect,” Lidington said. “Where the guys tend to be wanting to do video games and wanting to do robots, they’re not as likely to be looking at something that’s going to be impactful.”

While the girls may have a passion for engineering, there are also career aspects to consider.

“People are realizing that if you look at college degrees, eight or nine of the top paying degrees are engineering or computer science,” Lidington said. “It’s all coming out of technology, so it’s a good place to be.”

These classes are helping the girls not only with their career choices, but also their education.

“I really like the class because we learn skills that can be used for many things outside of the class,” sophomore Sarah Wallaert said. “I think the class has been good for me because it focuses on collaborating with other people instead of always thinking alone. It’s changed my attitude towards projects and assignments, not only in engineering but also in the rest of my classes.”

Seeing more women taking engineering is a positive for Lidington.

“I’ve had some really good senior engineering projects done [by the girls],” Lidington said. “And we’re seeing definite growth of the women coming into the program, and that’s great.”