IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2010 - 24

the duration of the studies and the
mean graduation grade are presented,
respectively.
One less optimistic statistical result
is demonstrated in Figure 9, where the
top five graduation grades are presented. The number of girls is suppressed
and the first grade almost never belongs
to a girl. In comparison to Figure 4,
it can be seen that girls are entering
ECE with top grades, though this does

not happen with their
graduation grades.

Further Activities

Unfortunately,
women seem to
lack in confidence
and hard work in
comparison to their
colleagues.

5.55

5.59

6.22

5.95

6.68

6.52

The study revealed
some very interesting results regarding
the participation of girls
in the various activities of
student life. Girls are more
active in many optional or parallel
educational activities
during their student
life. For example, they
6.80
participate in practiMale Female
6.60
cal training courses to
6.40
6.20
advanced/electronic
6.00
educational pilot cours5.80
es, and they are involved
5.60
in the organization of
5.40
student conferences,
5.20
5.00
student contests, and
1980s
1990s
2000s
student theatric teams,
with very successful
Figure 7: Mean duration of undergraduate studies over
performances.
the three last decades.

Postgraduate Studies

1980s

1990s

7.44

7.34

7.11

7.13

Female

7.03

Male

6.91

7.50
7.40
7.30
7.20
7.10
7.00
6.90
6.80
6.70
6.60
6.50

2000s

Figure 8: Mean final grade of undergraduate studies
throughout the three last decades.

5
Male

Female

4
3
2

1988
1989

0

1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008

1

Figure 9: Top five male and female ECE graduates.

24

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

JUNE 2010

ECE of fers a hig h
q u a lit y p o st g r a du at e pro g r a m le a d ing to a Ph.D. degree.
As seen in Figure 10,
152 candidates currently attend the program, 27 of which are
women. Thus, the ratio
of female Ph.D. candidates (18%) is almost
equal to the ratio of
female graduates. The
corresponding percentage of the Mechanical
Department is 11%,
once again slightly
lower. The duration
of the Ph.D. studies,
as observed in Figure
11, is constantly a bit
longer than the one of
male Ph.D. candidates.
A fter wards, postgraduate student s
were asked to fill in an
additional questionnaire focused on issues

such as self-awareness,
entering the scientific
world as professionals, and facing family
challenges, all under
the perspective of
gender. In this survey, 27 out of the 125
post-graduates students,
or 21.60% of the total, have
participated. Given the fact that
the total of 125 corresponds to officially
registered post-graduates, some of which
are not active, the level of participation
has been considered to be satisfactory.
The number of women answering the
questionnaire was seven, 25.93% of the
whole sample. Since the percentage is
close enough to the percentage of the
women attending a Ph.D. course in ECE,
the results are regarded as representative
of the general trend.
The first part of the questionnaire
refers to the self-awareness of the participants. Students were asked to reveal
the way they perceive themselves by
answering whether or not their personalities can be described by some basic
aspects. Characteristics such as hard
work, competition, and the others seen
in Figure 12 are considered to be rather
common among researchers. By analyzing the questionnaire, the fact that
certain features are traditionally attributed to women seems to be contradicted.
For example, as observed in Figure
12, intuition and emotionality is less
indicative of women's personalities with
respect to the total sample. Moreover,
unfortunately women seem to lack in
confidence and hard work in comparison
to their colleagues.
Another question refers to originally
choosing the direction of undergraduate
studies during the national admittance
examinations. To no surprise, 88% of
the participants answered that ECE was
their first choice, but unfortunately 93%
think that the information on professional orientation offered by the state
was inadequate.
But what was the motive that drove a
youngster into choosing such a demanding science if not an official information
process? Figure 13 tries to give an answer



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