Christine Said:

College Scholarships/Aid?

We Answered:

First of all, you are definitely in the right track.
You're already thinking of college and what you want to study, something many students don't even think about until their junior year.

Second of all, you have an advantage. There are small little stereotypes that schools tend to use. What their looking for is diversity. Since engineering is a male-dominated field, you have a diverse advantage and high chance of getting accepted.

Another thing is you're Hispanic. Yet, another diverse advantage.
Let me just say this and I don't know if this applies in anywhere besides Texas but I'm sure it should.

Being a hispanic female who is interested in engineering, a male-dominated field, is almost an automatic acceptance into any college in Texas. A guaranteed acceptance would be if you were also economically unstable.

Think about it. You're pretty much the definition of diverse.
In my case it would be different. Since I'm a male and if I decided to study English to become a teacher, the same case would apply to me considering how English majors are typically females.


As for scholarships, you will get more help towards the end of your junior with local scholarships. Another thing is that if you apply early to your college of preference, they will also grant you fair amount of money according to your academic performance. Another thing you can do, and is something I recommend, is to apply for online scholarships. I'll have a link for you on a specific website that helped many of my classmates along with myself find scholarships.


One last word of advice I have to give is to NOT slack off your senior year of high school. In fact, I would work as hard as I can. For some reason, students have always assumed that you should slack off your last year of high school and relax. What you don't know is that once you get a scholarship and your grades begin to drop, the company or university has the option to take that away from you. In fact, one thing colleges look at when admitting students is to see how well they performed their senior year of high school. If they see your grades had a sudden drop, they will see you as a unconsistent student and will not consider you for their school.

Just something to think about.


Good luck with your scholarships.
I hope that helped.
If you have any questions/comments, please feel free to ask.

Brandon Said:

Can you answer some of my questions about female engineers?

We Answered:

Okay. I am a female Engineer. Would you like to tell me where you saw this thing about a free ride?

There are other women in engineering. Not many, but there are. If you want a free ride, you just have to get good grades. There may be some scholarships out there, but I wouldn't count on it.

As far as working from home, that is what everyone wants to do. Programming is probably your best bet though since it can easily be done from home.

You also must consider, that

a) You may not have continuous work. Engineers get laid off often. And the type of work you are looking for might not always be there.

b) Taking care of a child is a job in itself. And working as a Engineer is often demanding. Men struggle sometimes with their work; Women struggle with the damn kids.

With that said, it is far easier for a female engineer to find a job as opposed to a male engineer. This isn't even due to affirmative action or anything like that.

It just so happens that when every one of their 50 employees are men, it would be nice and relieving to see a change of scenery. That's all.

Eddie Said:

Do schools ever give merit scholarships when you are close but don't exactly meet the requirements?

We Answered:

It's rare. It does happen sometimes so we can't say "never" but usually the process is handled by an administrative type person that probably has no more education than you do and a lower GPA. That person has a list and if it says "3.75" and you don't have a 3.75 then you don't make the cut.

More modern colleges use a computer to sort their lists. If they tell the computer to give them a list of everyone over a 3.75 then you won't be on the list to even be considered at 3.73

That said, ask anyway. Very often it's the people that ask that get the money. Not just about this one. If you're told "no" then ask "is there anything else I could apply for?"

Good luck

Heidi Said:

As a female in Biomed Engineering, would I be considered a "minority"?

We Answered:

The current definition of minority is not clear.

Some schools consider minority base on race (i.e. African, Latino, etc) Asians would not count because they are too many in top schools.

However, some schools would say that Only Mexicans from the Latino list are eligible.

There are some programs in engineering that women would be consider a minority.

For Example, MIT has Women in Chemistry.

You would have to ask your school