Determined to become engineers: Here’s what women are saying

For many educational leaders, the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development is a benchmark that guides programme and policy development.

As we start 2025, it is important to reflect on international initiatives that remind us of the importance of quality education, which is Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), including access to high-quality tertiary education. For many African countries, gender inequality (SDG 5) in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, threatens the gains made by many governments to expand access to post-secondary education.

Against this background, as researchers, we find the case of women engineering students in three East African countries to be an interesting demographic to look at more closely.

For the past few years, a team led by Dr Meseret Hailu (University of Georgia, United States), Dr Roseanne Njiru (University of Nairobi, Kenya), Dr Kyoheirwe Muhanguzi (Makerere University, Uganda), Dr Marie Chantal Cyulinyana (Rwanda National Council for Science and Technology), and Professor Joselyne Munezero (University of Rwanda), with the help of several students, (including Samantha Santos, who co-authored this article) have been looking at the perceptions, attitudes and insights of current undergraduates.

In this article, we highlight the findings from a mixed-method, multi-institutional study that included 60 interviews and 150 survey responses of current students.

We found that, contrary to prior contributions in the literature that focused on low women’s self-efficacy in African higher education, women are determined to become engineers.

They reported navigating gendered experiences, having a pronounced determination to succeed, and chasing opportunities for growth. It is important to understand how and why.

‘Women can do all things’

Despite acknowledging gender-based discrimination and hostility, women at all three [African] universities included in the study were determined to overcome – and were frequently motivated by – these barriers.

While under-representation and gendered interactions occasionally discouraged participants, many expressed confidence in their abilities as women, sharing the sentiment that “women can do all things”, as a student from the University of Rwanda (UR) stated in a response.

Rather than be dissuaded from persisting in engineering, a participant from the University of Nairobi (UoN) felt that the under-representation of women motivated her to excel, as she believed that, for women to be recognised for their achievements, they must be top performers.

Meanwhile, a participant from Makerere University (MU) explained the importance of representation among faculty, describing feeling discouraged by seeing few women lecturers in a programme dominated by male faculty.

Another participant from UR corroborated the importance of women lecturers, as she felt more comfortable connecting with them and felt she could share more with women lecturers than men.

In addition to recognising how representation affects their pathways, participants acknowledged the role they play for future generations.

One participant described the pressure of serving as a mentor to high school girls who told her: “… we can’t wait to be like you”. She feared letting them down if she did not succeed. The MU student added: “And then they see me crushed down and [that] things are not working out. Yeah, that’s my biggest fear.”

This pressure, our study suggested, served as a motivation for women to persist in engineering and provided a role model for girls who want to be engineers.

Determination to succeed

A common thread running through the experiences of our participants was their determination and ownership to facilitate their own success in engineering. Participants across all three universities acknowledged the self-drive necessary to succeed, especially in the transition from secondary school to university.

One participant from the University of Nairobi even felt that she was the only one who could facilitate her own success, accepting the challenges that she faced as part of the journey.

Furthermore, a participant from MU described how being the first woman in her family to pursue engineering made her feel “destined for greatness”, as she refused to pick an easier major despite her mother’s insistence that engineering would be too difficult for a woman.

She felt that pursuing engineering against her mother’s advice not only made her more determined to succeed, but also provided an example for her younger siblings to persist in their goals. This exemplifies how women engineering students are highly driven to reach their goals, regardless of the challenges they face.

Several participants also demonstrated self-drive in describing the aspects of their personality that enable their success.

Consistently, women engineering students in our study, across all three campuses, felt the most beneficial aspects of their personality were their ambition, perseverance, extroversion, and confidence.

One UoN participant explained that her extroversion and confidence enabled her to form a network of support which, in addition to her academic focus, made her excel as an engineering student.

Each participant described how their attributes help them to succeed in engineering, and all participants valued being hard-working and social.

Chasing opportunities for growth

Another commonality across all universities was the expressed desire for more resources and opportunities to strengthen students’ performance and persistence in engineering.

Participants shared that increased STEM access in high schools, access to opportunities, and institutional support specific to women would allow them to feel more comfortable and prepared to succeed in their degree programmes.

One participant from UoN felt that men were better prepared by the STEM courses offered to them in high school, while women were not offered the same level of STEM education.

She felt discouraged by this when she began her degree, questioning her sense of belonging in the programme. She further said introducing technical skills to girls in high school would be beneficial to students who want to go into engineering: “For example, even if you take me back to high school right now, I would still come to electrical engineering. There are those kinds of girl in high school. So introducing them to such [skills], even if not a lot, but just exposing them to such things, would be of great benefit.”

Moreover, a participant from UR corroborated the concern that women lacked the same skill set as their male counterparts and suggested the best way for the engineering department to improve women’s experiences in the programme would be to offer more internships, giving women more opportunities to gain technical skills and experience.

Similarly, a participant from Makerere University felt that, because of the under-representation of women in the programme, women were often overlooked for career development opportunities.

She felt that opportunities were predominantly offered to top male students in the programme, with very few opportunities extended to women, and that offering opportunities to high-performing women would “give them a chance to flourish in their careers”.

Across all the universities included in the study, participants expressed the desire for more opportunities for academic and career development, eager to build their own pathways to success.

Acknowledging the multifaceted student experience

To be sure, women are not the only students experiencing it. Men also experience discrimination, especially those who are from low-income families or rural areas.

However, this type of research is still needed, considering how much of the existing research about African higher education does not often focus on countries such Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.

Building on the great trajectory of research coming from South African institutions such as the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University, we want to extend the work to East Africa as a focal point.

Moving forward

Empirical research findings such as these show us the importance of viewing African students themselves as stakeholders. Student perspectives should compel us to establish interventions and support systems at an institutional level, rather than training for individual students.

We recommend a scholarly focus beyond individual-level assertiveness, focusing more on professional development opportunities and cultivating networks, such as advisers and internship opportunities.

With these types of structural interventions in place, African women can broaden their horizons in an increasingly prominent field.

Samantha L Santos works as a senior instructional specialist at Arizona State University, United States, in the School of Life Sciences Undergraduate Programs. Dr Meseret F Hailu is an assistant professor of higher education at the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education, University of Georgia, United States. Currently, she explores research concerning the experiences of undergraduate black women in different settings, including East Africa and the United States. Her research has been funded by the National Academy of Education (NAEd)/Spencer Foundation, Fulbright Program, National Science Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development.