STEAM Smart: Girls pushed toward careers in science, technology, engineering and math

Navigating the teen years is almost never easy. It can be even more daunting for young women interested in joining male-dominated fields like science, technology, engineering and math.

That’s why a host of career analysts, recent graduates and others — all of them women — turned out Saturday for the 9th annual Girls Inspiring Real Leadership in STEAM Conference, a half-day effort to promote futures in research, design, medicine and acedemia to teenage girls.

Staged this year at Eastlake Middle School in Chula Vista, the annual G.I.R.L.S. Conference aimed to bring working and aspiring professionals together to promote careers in the sciences and to remind girls they are capable of achieving whatever they want.

“I wanted to make an impact on the world by doing something that’s tangibly going to help someone,” Morgan McFarland, a San Diego State University mechanical engineering major and one of numerous speakers at the conference, told the audience of middle- and high school girls.

“Make sure you put yourself out there — it’s important to feel uncomfortable,” she said. “Overcoming fear is going to be something that you need to do.”

McFarland told the girls in the crowd of 100 or more people that it also is important to seek out mentors, to learn confidence and assertiveness and to speak with authority.

“It might be scary. There might not be a lot of women. But it’s important to remember that you do qualify,” she said.

The event was co-hosted by the Eastlake High School chapter of SWENext, a youth-oriented project of the Society of Women Engineers, and TitanBot, a nonprofit organization run by high school students dedicated to supporting emerging researchers and leaders.

Before the mid-day lunch break, when participants were encouraged to trade experiences and contact information, the Eastlake High School robotics team demonstrated its latest design.

Other speakers at the conference talked about the difficulty of being interrupted by men during meetings, or talked down to or overlooked altogether. They said not to be intimidated by being in rooms with few or no other women.

Almost uniformly, they spoke about finding mentors, networking, joining groups like the Society of Women Engineers and not being shy about asking for help or guidance from people they admire.

“Talk to your professors, talk to your advisers,” said Emily Parise, a co-founder of the GIRLS Conference who earned a cognitive science degree from UC San Diego. “Find somebody who is where you want to be in the field.”

The advice was well received by the young girls in the audience.

Danielle Elizabeth Mensah-Baah, a seventh-grader at Nazareth School in Mission Valley, said she was grateful to hear from women who have gone before about what she can expect as she pushes toward her dream of becoming a heart surgeon.

“There are not that many women in STEAM,” said Danielle, who has already set her sights on Harvard University. “I want to learn more about the steps and what’s actually going to happen. I am inspired to keep going, to keep striving.”

Ava Ramsey, another seventh-grader who attended the G.I.R.L.S. Conference, said she was inspired by the women’s shared experiences and came away feeling more confident than ever that she can achieve whatever goals she sets for herself.

“I’ve never been interested in science and engineering until fifth or sixth grade, and this kind of sparked my interest,” she said. “You can always do anything — even if you are an underdog.”