Extracurricular activities and academics were both important stepping stones for two young women starting Waterloo Engineering programs this fall with $12,000 awards to help them leave gender stereotypes behind.
Anjali Joshi, 17, and Carmen Kwan, 18, join other campus-wide winners of HeForShe IMPACT Scholarships for female students entering the fields of science, technology, engineering and math – often referred to as STEM.
Now in their second year, the scholarships – which will go to 24 students in all over the course of four years - are part of an ongoing effort by the University of Waterloo to achieve gender equality in academic programs long dominated by men.
Waterloo is one of 10 universities around the world formally committed to that goal as part of a United Nations campaign called HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10, which seeks to remove social and cultural barriers preventing women from reaching their potential.
Anjali Joshi – Mechanical Engineering
Joshi is quick to credit supportive parents for encouraging her interest in STEM subjects, but she admits it took a little courage to look beyond their expectations of a career in medicine and the “intimidating” majority of men in engineering.
“I realized my strengths were in math and physics, and that’s what interested me the most,” she says of her last-minute decision to apply to engineering in addition to biomedical programs. “Ultimately, there was nothing stopping me.”
A graduate of Centennial Collegiate Vocational Institute in her hometown of Guelph, Joshi cites the University’s own Pearl Sullivan - a mechanical engineer and dean of the engineering faculty - as a role model for proving that “women are equally as capable as men.”
She is encouraged by the rising proportion of women entering engineering programs at Waterloo, now at almost 30 per cent, and hopes she is setting her own example for young girls to follow on the way to closing the gender gap entirely.
'Just do what you want'
“Don’t let a number tell you what you’re going to do in life,” Joshi says of the continuing disparity. “Just do what you want.”
Drawn to Waterloo by its co-op model, as well as the reputation of engineering students as “well-rounded global citizens,” she says the importance of striking a balance in all aspects of life is a key lesson she has learned so far.
“That’ll give you the most success – and happiness, of course,” Joshi says. “Success isn’t everything.”
Actively involved in both academic and social clubs in high school, she says they taught her about determination, teamwork, patience, communication and, most importantly, keeping doors open to new experiences and opportunities.
“If you don’t try anything new, you’re never going to learn what you really love,” says Joshi. “You have to keep growing.”
Carmen Kwan – Software Engineering
As a self-described introvert, Kwan had to push herself in high school to volunteer for a job on the information desk at a hospital near her hometown of Scarborough.
But she got so much out of interacting with strangers that she extended her initial commitment from one year to two and now looks forward to stepping outside her “comfort zone” even more while studying software engineering at Waterloo.
“It made me a lot more comfortable going up to people and just talking to them – like I have been doing so far in my first two weeks here at the University,” says Kwan.
An affinity for numbers goes all the way back to after-school care as a four-year-old, when she was often given a choice between exercises in math or English and never took long to decide.
Kwan was later encouraged to pursue STEM subjects by teachers at Monsignor Charbonnel Catholic Secondary School in North York, including one who insisted he could see her as an engineer even when she doubted it.
“I had that stereotype in my mind of a guy with a yellow hat trying to design a bridge,” she says, laughing at herself.
'I want to have a great experience'
Also a player, although hardly a star, in soccer and volleyball, Kwan was attracted to Waterloo by its extracurriculars and involved student community, which she sees as her tickets to getting more out of her time here than a first-rate education.
“I want to have a great experience and improve in general as a person – and if you’re just studying, I feel you’re not really doing that,” she says.
Kwan is considering a career as a game developer, but is also looking forward to her six work terms in the engineering co-op program to open her eyes to other possibilities.
A fan of Richard Feynman, the late, Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist, for his “way with words,” she worried she wouldn’t get accepted into software engineering, but went for it anyway - and now urges younger girls to do the same.
“If you tell yourself you’re not good enough and you don’t apply at all, you might just miss an opportunity to do what you really want to do,” says Kwan.