Arizona State University launched CareerWISE.com in November after receiving a $3.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2006.
The site, more than just another web resource with studies on how few women are entering STEM fields and finishing degree programs, offers advice and encouragement from women who have succeeded in the four STEM professions in an effort to close this gender gap.
Female college students are 37 percent less likely to pursue a degree in a STEM field than their male counterparts, according to a 2009 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Women comprise about one-fourth of the current STEM workforce.
NBER research showed that “while professor gender has little impact on male students, it has a powerful effect on female students’ performance in math and science classes, their likelihood of taking future math and science courses, and their likelihood of graduating with a STEM degree.”
The CareerWISE website, aimed at women pursuing their doctorate degrees in STEM fields, has hundreds of “HerStory” video clips of women who have navigated the difficult STEM road and established careers.
Videos include details on a wide variety of STEM fields, meaning women can find others from their particular profession, not just someone with a general STEM career, said Bianca Bernstein, an ASU counseling psychology professor and principal investigator of the CareerWISE research program grants.
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