How interests in science and technology have taken women to an engineering career

The purpose of this study was to investigate which circumstances made women interested in S&T early in childhood and adolescence, and what influenced them to choose a technical career. The number of women in this study is small but some comments could be given.

A clear conclusion is the great role the women gave their fathers and other male relatives in stimulating them for S&T. This has not been so clearly reported earlier. The women's mothers have encouraged their daughters for further studies, but barely for studies in S&T. This study emphasizes how important early positive experiences and a permissive attitude from adults are. The women have early been part of male settings and most of them reported that they were comfortable with this. Perhaps the most important outcome was that they may have experienced themselves as competent and felt comfortable in technical settings. These experiences were probably very important later on in their choice of career.