In this day and age with the many incredible advancements in education and technology, there is quite a unique decline in the amount of women and minorities studying and obtaining a degree in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Fields, or STEM Fields. As contributing members of the United States and its economy, we must rise to the occasion in order to increase the overall advancement of STEM fields. More importantly we must capitalize on the ability to draw more women and minorities into these fields. We need to recognize why more women as a whole have a decreasing interest in studying and working in STEM Fields. The economy now and in the future will be greatly impacted should there not be a dramatic change in the amount of women in STEM Fields. In order to fill the need for more women in STEM Fields, we must figure out what deters women from working in STEM Fields, set up programs for young girls to draw their attention toward STEM fields, and figure out how to make women more engaged in STEM fields. 

The glaring lack of women in STEM fields is unknown to many however it is being studied by lots of people. The initial realization that there simply are not a lot of women in these fields was interesting. A more important revelation than the fact that women are not really involved in these fields, is the fact that women going through high school or college have not really been exposed to such fields. Therefore, women have no reason to believe that majoring in any type of STEM field is important. That is why there are people, such as Virginia Kleist, who are studying the reasons behind the lack of women in STEM fields. She wrote a scholarly journal on the book "Women in STEM Careers: International Perspectives on Increasing Workforce Participation, Advancement, and Leadership" by Diana Bilimoria and Linley Lord.  In her scholarly review, Kleist said that this book "focuses on positive drivers for retention, constructive actions that can be taken by organizations to support women, and progressive interventions, organized into three parts reflecting these areas" (Kleist n.p.). Important steps toward retention, constructive actions, and progressive interventions must be taken. The encouragement of women to join the workforce of STEM Fields is imperative to try and bring about a change in the amount of women in these fields. As a result, we are changing others perspectives on women in STEM Fields. In the scholarly article "Women Are Underrepresented in Fields Where Success Is Believed to Require Brilliance" by Meredith Meyer, Andrei Cimpian, and Sarah-Jane Leslie, the authors suggest that women do not have the same innate abilities or aptitude as men. The article shows research that men can easily show that they are capable of outperforming women in STEM Fields. This belief on the part of men is sometimes miscalculated. It is not purely based upon gender that better qualifies men for jobs in STEM, but rather the common misconception among most people that puts men on a higher level than women. Women are more than capable of outperforming men and have the ability to do the same jobs as men do in STEM Fields. 

Furthermore, David Beede points out that women "hold less than 25 percent of STEM jobs" which is a very low percentage based on the amount of women currently occupying half of all jobs in the United States at this time (Beede 1). This kind of research that Beede has been doing over the years through the Economics and Statistics Administration has led to the discovery of a few reasons behind the lack of women and other minorities in STEM Fields. Such factors include: "a lack of female role models, gender stereotyping, and less family-friendly flexibility in the STEM Fields" (Beede 1). Similar to Beede, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health want to increase the amount of women in all STEM Fields. It says that "many STEM programs focus only on increasing representation and not on the institutional issues that are barriers for many students, such as racism or sexism" (Linley 98). Overall it takes the stance of creating an intervention at pivotal points in high school and college. It is important to focus on the long term possibilities and ways in which we are able to help women become a more prominent presence in STEM Fields.

Recently, Barrack Obama himself along with the White House Administration has noticed the ever increasing underrepresentation of women in STEM Fields. They are analyzing the overall situation in order to better understand how to combat the problem. In a newspaper article written by Lauren Camera entitled, "Women Still Underrepresented in STEM Fields," she explains that even the Obama Administrations realization that there is a big issue. In response, they brought in a group of women who are in their postdoctoral studies to the White House. They did this in order to discuss what they have personally experienced in being a part of these fields and what can be done to fix these and many other issues surrounding women in these fields. Sarah Richardson is one of these women who is in her post-doctoral studies at the University of California  --  Berkeley. Sarah, along with the other four women in their postdoctoral studies, "were named recipients of the 2015 For Women in Science Fellowship and given $60,000 grants from L'Oreal to advance their postdoctoral research" (Camera n.p.). L'Oreal is a company that has realized the present issue of very few women studying and obtaining a degree in STEM Fields. Therefore the company has put special grants in place to allow these women to further advance their studies. Sarah Richardson noted that "it wasn't until she began adding male colleagues' names to her research papers and grant applications that she began being published more often and receiving more funding for future projects" (Camera n.p.). It is horrible that it takes the adding of a male colleagues' name to your own research for that research to garner any sort of publication or recognition. An interesting thing to note is how it came to be that men were more qualified in their research to be more fully recognized for it than research conducted and published by women. Along with the many interesting reasons as to why women are deterred from studying and obtaining degrees in STEM fields, is that in response to this many programs have been started in order to create a change in regards to the amount of women in STEM fields. 

Many programs have been started in the past decades to combat the decline of women studying and obtaining degrees in STEM Fields. One such program is called Project Engages, or Engaging New Generations at Georgia Tech through Engineering & Science. It was started by the Georgia Institute of Technology in June of 2013, with a small class of just twelve students. These twelve students were a combination of "six girls from Coretta Scott King Young Women's Leadership Academy and six males from the BEST Academy" (Engages 1). These students would be enrolled in Project Engages and have the ability to decide which track they would like to pursue whether it be the Biotechnology Track or the Engineering Track. This project strives to inspire students to see the immense possibilities that are available to them if they are able to put in the work. It gives students the ability to work more hands on to gain an interest in these fields. Georgia Tech wants to improve the science programs in these schools in order to allow students to explore their interests and see if this could possibly result in more students going on to pursue a career in STEM Fields. 

Another project with similar goals to that of Project Engages is IGNITE, or Inspiring Girls Now in Technology Evolution. This is a non-profit organization that was founded back in 1999 in order to promote the education and involvement of women in STEM Fields. This organization was started in the Seattle School District to further the equality of women in STEM Fields. Those working for and through IGNITE say that "inviting girls to informational programs where they met women working in STEM careers immediately increased girls interest up to 50 percent in technology programs offered by the school district" (Rodgveller n.p). Along with their base in the Seattle School Districts, IGNITE allows for anyone who is invested enough to start their own chapter of IGNITE in the city in which they live whether inside the United States, or internationally. This is a great aspect of the IGNITE project because they are not only promoting STEM careers in Seattle School Districts, but also are leaving the door open to an immense amount of opportunities spanning the entire globe.

Along with such projects as Project Engages and IGNITE, we must continue to figure out how to make women more engaged in STEM Fields. Freeman Hrabowski is well versed in the studies of STEM Fields and through his scholarly journal "Broadening Participation In The American STEM Workforce," he delves into a case study conducted by The Bayer Corporation. In this study, The Bayer Corporation examined the "practices and attitudes within science departments at the nation's leading research institutions" (Hrabowski III 325). After the initial study took place the results show that many people in the STEM workforce would like to see an increase in the amount of women as well as underrepresented minorities in STEM Fields. It is said that a lot of attempts have been made to increase the number of underrepresented women and other minorities in STEM fields, however that issue has always been challenging. In the study it talks about how "we see other nations substantially increasing their investments in science and technology and producing larger proportions of workers in these areas" (Hrabowski III 325).  In doing all of this we are tapping into a part of the population that has otherwise not been used as adequately as it could have been used. 

Within the United States we need to stress the importance of having more women and people from diverse backgrounds working in STEM. This is imperative in order to be able to keep up with the rapid growth in other countries around the world. Furthermore, it helps to have more United States born citizens in the future to help further our advancements within these fields. According to the article "The Twenty-First-Century Case For Inclusive Excellence in STEM," by Patrice McDermott, she focuses on the issue of not having enough United States born citizens. This allows the STEM workforce to not feel stretched in terms of the amount of work that they are able to complete. It adds that we want to be able to allow for a more diversified workforce and be more tolerant of women in STEM Fields. We must call for a higher education reform if there were the ability to garner more attention from students in the positive aspects of participating in STEM fields.  In targeting women and other minorities, we can gain a huge leg up since these represent some of the "fastest-growing segment[s] of the US population" (Hrabowski III 325). A way in which Hrabowski suggests that we go about trying to engage women and minorities in STEM Fields is through "redesigning first-year STEM courses to promote active learning and collaboration" (Hrabowski III 325). Moreover, in Catherine Riegle-Crumb's article, it focuses on why STEM Fields are mainly male dominated and why it needs to be understood that women are very capable of being in these fields. STEM Fields should be equally occupied by both men and women. It is said that "STEM Fields represent a troubling instance of stratification" (Riegle-Crumb 656).

Conversely, I started going about my research on the underrepresentation of women and minorities in STEM Fields. I came across an interesting article in which Sue V. Rosser states that there actually are a lot of women who are obtaining "more bachelor's and master's degrees, over all, than men do" (Rosser n.p.). The research that Rosser wrote about is at least sixteen years old, dating back to the year 2000. This article tries to undermine my previous research however a key issue with this counter argument is that it dates back to the year 2000 all the way through 2010. The problem with this is that since this period over six years have passed which could mean that the data presented may be outdated and could have change either in a positive or a negative way. 

In trying to discover what has deterred so many women from working in STEM Fields, many people have tried to settle on one distinct reason as to why there has been a substantial underrepresentation of women in STEM Fields. This has proven to be a hard issue to figure out but through the likes of people such as Virginia Kleist suggest, we should garner our attention to focus on the issue of retention, constructive actions, and progressive interventions. In attempts to attain these goals we have set for our society, we must encourage more and more women to join the STEM workforce. We must help change other people's perspectives on the women currently in STEM or pursuing degrees, or careers in STEM Fields. Furthermore, Meredith Meyer tells us that men have more of an innate ability to work in such fields. However, women do not have an equally innate ability to perform in these fields but they are more than capable of doing so and succeeding in such fields. It is through David Beede's extensive research on the topic of females in STEM fields, that it was discovered that women hold a fourth of the amount of overall STEM jobs. This is very low considering the overall amount of people with jobs in the United States alone. Beede concluded that a few key factors have made a huge difference in whether or not a young girl may or may not choose to pursue a degree as well as a career in STEM. It is said that these key factors should be made at a pivotal point during both high school and college years. Moreover, the importance of projects being put in place in elementary schools and at a young age is pivotal. Programs such as Project Engages, which was started at the Georgia Institute of Technology only a few years ago, has already made a tremendous impact on our society. It has allowed many young girls and boys to gain a special interest in fields such as Biotechnology and Engineering. Gaining interest in such fields at a young age can give these young girls and boys the ability to genuinely be interested in such fields as they approach their college years and post-graduate careers. Additionally, IGNITE is another program that was set up in the school district in Seattle, Washington. Similar to Project Engages, IGNITE is an afterschool program that allows young girls to meet and learn from women who chose a career in STEM Fields and to learn firsthand what is to come for them if they were to do the same. These young girls are mentored and are able to foster an interest in STEM Fields in order to better help the United States combat the overall decrease of women in these fields and to prepare for the ever evolving future in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. 

Subsequently, a way to engage women's interests in STEM Fields is important. Whether it be trying to tap into the immense amount of potential and capabilities that other minorities as well as women possess, we must help to change the ways in which women in STEM Fields are viewed by their male colleagues'. Many women have struggled with the issue of having to add a male colleagues' name to their research in order to gain the appropriate amount of recognition as well as to receive more funding. This should simply not be the case and that is why we must all focus on seeing men and women in a more equal light than we ever previously have. Women can achieve the same level of intelligence and capabilities in STEM Fields just like men. 

