Every school has something unique to offer students. One unique program on campus is designed to prepare future doctors, engineers and scientists: STEM.

Parker Olszak, a senior in the Honors Principles of Engineering class, says that “STEM is a stepping stool towards future development for engineering or any kind of science field in general.”

STEM has attracted many students, including transfers from other schools. The program has won several academic awards including the Golden Bell Award.

Throughout the higher grade levels, however, the number of students participating in it is declining. Especially the number of females. For the females there are fifty-nine freshmen, forty-eight sophomores, thirty-two juniors, and eight seniors.

Mckenzie Wessing, a junior STEM student says she wants to be a biology chemist. She admits that “I have noticed the drop in the female population in the STEM program.”

Averie Scholz was a strong member of the STEM program who contributed a lot to it by helping earn awards for the program. She graduated in 2016 as a part of the first graduating class to be a part in STEM.

The number of female engineers in that population is also decreasing, but more dramatically than the number of females as a whole in the program. In fact, engineering teacher Timothy Jehl admitted as much, when he said: “women in the STEM program and particularly in engineering, are horribly represented in those fields.”

The program is trying to promote the study of engineering to the female population due to the lack of female engineers in the workforce. They are presenting engineering in a way that makes girls want to participate. For example, they have been hosting seminars for females interested in engineering in order to expose females to that subject.

In the engineering workforce there are many stereotypes against the female population. The females who want to be engineers have to break stereotypes, such as women should not be working on machines but in the house, making their job a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

Fred Mann, who has been the STEM counselor for four years, says “there are 148 females in our program. There are 59 female freshmen; 84 males.”

The program was made for anyone seeking a profession in any science field, whether it be a doctor, engineer, math teacher, or mad scientist.