Nursing freshman Daryl Leon laughs when he recalls taking one of his first midterms last semester. Looking around the packed auditorium, he could only think one thing: "Wow, there's a lot of estrogen in this room," he said.
For many men in the Nursing School and women in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, experiences like these are not uncommon. While representation in their respective schools has increased in the past several years, both groups are still distinctly in the minority.
In the Nursing School, 64 out of the 875 undergraduate and graduate students are male. That is 7.3 percent, which is higher than the 5 percent of male nurses in the work force. In the Engineering School, 675 out of the 1,729 undergraduate and graduate students are female, representing 39 percent of the school.
Engineering freshman Clara Voigt said that she chose to apply to the Engineering School on the advice of her guidance counselor.
"Now that I'm in it, I want to prove myself," Voigt said. She added that while she usually gets along well with the men in her classes, there are times when she just wants to say, "Shut up and take me seriously."
Leon said that his decision to enroll in the Nursing School followed a childhood in which he sometimes had an unhealthy infatuation with health care.
"I was that kid who, when flipping through channels, would stop on the surgical channels when things were getting cut open," he said. "My friends would laugh, but I'd say, 'No, this is cool!'"
While stressing that peers are usually respectful when he tells them he is studying nursing, Leon said that he is still sometimes the target of jokes.
"I have friends who call me 'Focker,'" he said, referring to the main character in the hit movie Meet the Parents, who is a male nurse. "I don't know what that movie has done for the profession."
Senior Oliver Chu, who is in a joint degree program with Nursing and Wharton, decided that he wanted to go into nursing after his father died of cancer during his sophomore year of high school.
"When the doctors realized they couldn't do anything anymore, their visits became shorter," he said. "But the nurses didn't stop. They tried to make [my father] comfortable even when things really didn't look good. I knew then that nursing was something I wanted to be a part of."
Chu admits that he is the recipient of a few nicknames as well. "Some of my friends call me 'murse' for 'male nurse,'" he said.
Chu said that while being in the minority is not necessarily a bad thing, it does have its drawbacks.
"With only five guys, you can't ditch class," he said. "If you ditch, the professor will know you're not there."
Male nursing students say that they feel very comfortable in the school even if there are no specific male student organizations.
"I have a few professors who are male. I could go to them anytime I have problems," Chu said.
In the Engineering School, Department Manager and Assistant to the Chair Rita Powell has worked with Computer and Information Science Chairman Fernando Pereira to improve the quality of support for female students.
After conducting a study with a number of female computer science engineers last year, Powell identified student retention, networking opportunities and a more social atmosphere as areas that needed improvement in the school.
She also said that collaboration between men and women in the school is essential. "When male and female groups work together, the barriers break down naturally," she said.
A year and a half ago, Management and Technology senior Radhika Gupta started a student group called Women in Computer Sciences to complement the already-existing Society of Women Engineers. The new group brings together women computer science engineers for social events ranging from faculty-student chats to Bubble Tea House parties.
Engineering sophomore Shruti Shah said that this sense of community is important in an academic environment.
"You can go to a girl for help about a computer science project or if you are having guy trouble. It's two roles into one," she said.
