Going Beyond Gender Balance: Understanding the Intersection of Gender and the Engineering Experiences of Alumni

This Research Full Paper investigates how students experience “gender-balanced“ engineering environments and how alumni narrate the stories of their experiences in such “gender-balanced“ engineering environments. Using the grounded theory approach, this study examines interviews of engineering alumni about their experiences in a “gender-balanced” educational environment. Using two emergent constructs, awareness and impact, we take a detailed look at how gender has shaped the participants’ undergraduate and post-graduate experiences. These constructs suggest that having parity in the number of men and women in an engineering institution is not sufficient for creating equitable environments for men and women to thrive.