Women of color are very underrepresented when dealing with studying engineering despite recent growth in student diversity among colleges and universities. Women who choose to pursue an engineering education do so for a variety of reasons, from successful ability and understanding in math and science to personal interests. More and more women are starting off in STEM programs but they are leaving the programs at a much higher rate than their white female counterparts. Two major reasons for this seem to be:
- Women of color are not feeling welcomed in the major, and because they are not feeling welcomed they do not persist to finish the program
- Women of color feel the need to follow the social norms which generally for minority women is to avoid science and technology majors