Women have been attending school, achieving graduate degrees and obtaining professional positions for a number of decades. However, many industries are still very male-dominated. For us, that means we will be working with men for a lot of our lives, in school, work and business relationships. For Caitlyn Tubbs, a senior at the U, she has experienced these relationships throughout her undergraduate career.
Caitlyn will graduate from the College of Architecture with a degree in urban planning next May. Infamously around campus, the College of Architecture is male dominated. Caitlyn agrees, noting that her classes are about 80 percent men and 20 percent women. Many of her professors, however, are women, and that has given her a better opportunity to connect with her college leaders.
Because men outnumber women so greatly in her architecture classes, Caitlyn says that “it has been a little uncomfortable in the past to walk into a room and be the only…woman.” In her classes, Caitlyn has noticed that most of the men group together and generally only interact with the women in class when they’re assigned to work together. For Caitlyn, this means more difficulty in striking up conversation, but she consistently presents herself in a professional manner.
In group projects, if she can, Caitlyn prefers to work with women. “There seems to be more common interests in the group,” she says. Caitlyn doesn’t mind working with the men in her classes but notes that initiating the conversation and assignments in that situation can prove difficult.
A bigger challenge she’s noticed, however, is that men struggle to work more with women than they do with men. “They seem a little uneasy about an integrated workforce and group, but after a few smaller assignments they really begin to relax and work with the women in class a little bit more,” she said. Successful interaction in class has been about warming up to all the students in class, and sometimes that can take months or even a whole semester.
After her graduation in May, Caitlyn is planning on attending graduate school, and she anticipates the situation in the classroom will be similar. “I’m hoping that graduate programs will encourage even more integration and will create diverse groups right off the bat,” she said. For her, integration isn’t intimidating. She wants to be able to learn from everyone in class and for all students, men and women, to open up during discussions and projects.
Caitlyn has a few nerves regarding her future, especially in the workforce. “I’m a little nervous in working in such a male field, but I hope that by the time I enter the workforce things will have progressed a little, so it won’t be as difficult a transition as it could be,” Caitlyn admitted. Her nerves are more focused toward job security and the overall economic conditions, anyhow. She says she’s less concerned with entering a predominately male field and more excited about progressing in her career.
Caitlyn has shown that creating cohesiveness with your classmates takes time, and it’s important to fearlessly focus on being yourself consistently and doing your best work. With that attitude, she can make it anywhere!