New Course Helps Students Explore, Combat Challenges Women Face in Engineering

There’s a saying in engineering that goes, “Visible as a woman, invisible as an engineer.”  

Biomedical engineering student Angelika Tamura struggled with this during her first year at the University of California, Davis. She struggled with feeling unseen in a male-dominated field. 

“I was one of those people in my first year,” she said. “The first couple of weeks are fine, but if you don't find your group, it discourages you. At least, it discouraged me from attending my classes, because I felt like I was falling out of the loop.” 

In her junior year, she found her group: the Cube³ Lab. Led by Assistant Professor of Teaching in Biomedical Engineering Xianglong Wang, the lab strives to create the best educational experiences for undergraduate students in biomedical engineering. 

As part of the lab, Tamura is working to ensure new students are seen and never feel as if they are falling out of the loop like she did. The Cube³ Lab has developed a new course for first-year students to build community as they learn about and find solutions to the issues women face in engineering. 

The Power of Connections 

Called “Gals and Pals in Engineering,” the course is part of the First-Year Aggie Connections program, or FYAC. These experiences aim to help students who have just joined campus, including transfer and international students, develop a sense of belonging through small groups built around a shared purpose or interest. 

The Cube³ Lab first developed the idea for the course over the summer of 2024, born out of conversations between Wang, Tamura and fellow lab mate and senior biomedical engineering student Tiffany Chan.    

“We all have an interest in making sure that our women engineering students are being treated fairly,” Wang said of his lab, identifying unfair gender-based stereotypes like women being worse at math or the lack of representation of women in engineering leadership. “We knew we wanted some kind of community-building experience for our students to come here and know that engineering can be a welcoming place.” 

The FYAC is intended for first-year women engineers and is also open to mentors and allies. A major goal of the course is for students to build social capital and a sense of belonging as women engineers at UC Davis. To help foster a sense of community among students, one meeting per week will be devoted to helping each other out with homework. 

The Power of Conversations 

The FYAC features a distinctive teaching style: the flipped classroom model. 

Students read course materials before coming to class, such as journal articles on the treatment of women faculty in engineering departments. Once in the classroom, the students have the opportunity to have a dialogue meaningful to them as a group. 

“The method helps students take more ownership of the class,” said Chan. “It's really nice to have students be able to take more command of what they're learning.” 

Chan said that sometimes students are hesitant to share their ideas at first but become more comfortable as the class goes on. 

“I think that's the best part, knowing that you’re not only helping make a difference by empowering these students to find their voices but that they also actually care about these issues.”  

The Power of Representation 

Part of the course’s mission to help women engineers feel welcome is through countering a chilly climate, or environments where women and underserved groups experience discriminatory treatment. 

“For women engineers, you're often seen as an attractive person in the classroom, rather than a capable engineer,” Wang said. “There are also cases, for example, when women students join a team with guys, the guys brush off everything that the women say, and then, after a little while, they come up with the same idea and do not give the women students any credit.” 

One way this FYAC hopes to oppose this is by bringing attention to the challenges women engineers face on campus. For example, the course holds a “Women in Engineering” panel, which has included electrical and computer engineering graduate student Raphaella Banholzer, development engineer Valerie Quiroz and Associate Professor of Teaching in Civil and Environmental Engineering Colleen Bronner.  

“Through these panels, the students become more aware of the real-life challenges and hear some solutions,” Wang said. “They also see role models, they see who they themselves could potentially be.” 

For Tamura, being a part of the team putting together “Gals and Pals in Engineering” has been a life-changing experience. 

“My first two years at UC Davis were very rough,” she said. “But, being a part of something like this and the Cube³ Lab has encouraged me to not only help new students but also to make sure that I'm on top of my study, to set an example for others.”