SWARTHMORE Pa.
When Kara Peterman was a high school student interested in engineering, she toured a high-powered engineering university in the Northeast that proudly displayed photos of its graduates.
She counted three women in one picture.
“I wasn’t really encouraged,” she recalled.
Today, Peterman is a 20-year-old junior engineering major at Swarthmore College an elite school renowned primarily for its liberal arts program. It’s one of an increasing number of colleges traditionally known for the humanities English, history, philosophy that is creating or strengthening a niche for engineering students.
Wellesley College, a top-tier women’s school outside Boston, offered its first engineering course last spring. Smith College, an elite liberal arts school for women in western Massachusetts, graduated its first engineering majors in 2004.
“Engineering is science in service to society,” said Ted Ducas, a Wellesley professor. “Addressing fundamental problems of the world that’s of great interest to our students.”
