A misunderstanding of what engineering involves could partly explain why women continue to be so heavily outnumbered in the industry.
"A lot of people imagine that engineering means standing on a construction site in a hard hat for the rest of your life," Alex Bannigan, the manager of women in engineering at the University of NSW, said. "We're really trying to get the message out to schoolgirls, as well as their parents and teachers, that most engineering definitely doesn't involve standing on a construction site."
Dr Bannigan's role at the university is to increase the number of women in the engineering schools.
As part of that push, 30 high school students were selected to take part in a five-day engineering camp this week, with girls coming from across NSW as well as interstate.
The jam-packed itinerary included talks from leading engineers, networking opportunities, and field trips to the Qantas engine shop, the Red Cross blood processing centre and the Powerhouse Museum Mars Rover workshop.
Demand for the program trebled this year.
"Engineering is a great career for women. It pays well, it's creative, it helps people. It ticks a lot of the boxes that girls say they want in a career," Dr Bannigan said.
The university has set a goal to increase the proportion of women enrolling in engineering to 25 per cent by 2020. Last year the rate was 22 per cent, already well above the national average.
The desire to boost female enrolments is partly driven by industry demand.
"Industry recognises that diversity in their workforce improves their business outcomes," Dr Bannigan said. "There is also just the basic social equity issue that 50 per cent of the population is women and 20 per cent of the population is designing all the stuff we are using and living in."
The problem is not that young women are uninterested in engineering. More likely, it's that they are not aware of the breadth of opportunity.
Students at UNSW can study more than 25 engineering disciplines, including aerospace, biomedical, chemical, electrical, environmental, mechanical, mining and software.
For Alex Nero, who flew up from Albury, it was one of three engineering camps she has been selected for this summer, taking out half of her holidays.
"I love the problem-solving in engineering integrated with maths and science," she said. "I wanted to do medicine but I decided I didn't like hospitals so I looked to engineering."
The 17-year-old was undeterred by the prospect of being outnumbered by male classmates and colleagues.
"If anyone still holds those stigmas around girls going into engineering, hopefully they'll disappear soon enough," she said. "It is daunting because I know there will be times I'll be working with an all-male team but I think it's going to be really exciting."
