Women continue to be underrepresented in engineering and technology fields. Recent gains in gender equity in bioengineering and environmental engineering suggest that women are attracted to fields they view as contributing to society. Furthermore, it has been suggested that women’s choice to enter a particular field of engineering is related to their perceived strengths in areas such as communication and interpersonal skills. We incorporated an outreach teaching activity and emphasized communication and interpersonal skills in an undergraduate engineering course and found that women undergraduates had higher confidence than men in these areas and viewed these activities as most worthwhile for their career.

Structural Aspects of Biomaterials is an upper-level undergraduate course cross-listed with mechanical and bioengineering. The enrollment is typically about 50 students with an even gender split. The course emphasized outreach, communication, and interpersonal skills with a group project supported throughout the semester by a required skills lab. The project included an outreach teaching activity for 5 th grade students at a local children’s science museum, a written report, and an oral presentation. The supporting skills lab taught technical writing and editing, oral presentation skills, and interpersonal skills linked to Felder’s learning styles. 1 Student teams were assigned so that all majors, learning styles, and genders were represented in each team. The activities were assessed using four surveys throughout the semester.