Attracting Women to EECS at Berkeley

To stimulate greater awareness of engineering among high school women, we have developed two websites: one for prospective EECS undergraduate women and another for all prospective freshman applicants to EECS. Each fall, a letter from a current woman engineer is mailed to high school seniors, encouraging them to consider applying to Berkeley EECS. A brochure for prospective women is available that details various undergraduate research opportunities, scholarships, academic resources, and student organizations. For copies of the brochure, please contact the EECS Center for Undergraduate Matters at (510) 643-8205.

The Center also sponsors high school outreach programs, such as Double X, an after-school science club for high school women that was first implemented in Spring 2001. Additional outreach efforts are accomplished through collaborations between the Center and the Society of Women Engineers.

An undergraduate recruitment committee known as STAR (Student Taskforce for Active Recruitment) is comprised of undergraduate EECS students who are willing to answer individual questions from EECS applicants, host admitted students each April, and welcome admitted freshman women. In 2001, STAR volunteers also mentored admitted women students who visited campus as part of the Fly to Berkeley EECS Program.