Picture this: you’re an aerospace engineer and in your class year there are about 100 students — and 20 of them are girls. Seems super uneven right? Aerospace Engineer Marlee Litzinger knows the feeling. She has an Astronautics concentration within the College of Engineering, focusing specifically in spacecrafts and their systems. For Marlee, who is from a small high school where the majority of her classmates were girls, coming to Cal Poly and being in classes mostly full of boys was a huge shock.
Above: Senior year of High School vs. Now
Marlee can recall a few instances that really had an impact on her as a woman in engineering, like during a lab her freshman year where she overheard two guys negatively talking about women and feminism. She remembers it was something along the lines of, “feminists are women who cry rape,” similar to the boy who cried wolf logic. She distinctly remembers this moment because it was deeply upsetting, especially considering that she was one of two girls in that class against about 20 boys.
Marlee explains it’s really only the students she’s had negative experiences with; all the faculty in the engineering department are great. The professors actually poke fun at the lack of diversity that is common in engineering in the hopes that it will draw attention to the problem in order to change it. Dr. Abercromby in particular is an important role model to Marlee. She is the undergraduate advisor for the Aerospace Department, and teaches the Orbits class Marlee is currently taking. She admires Dr. Abercromby because she always makes a point to recognize the women in aerospace history for their accomplishments that frequently get swept under the rug.
Even though Marlee isn’t a part of the Aerospace clubs, she finds different ways to stay involved and busy on campus. “Blues dancing is my life,” she admits with a grin, as the Vice President of the Blues club on campus, Drop Dead Blues. With a minor in Dance, Marlee’s ideal career path would be an Aerospace Engineer somewhere with a Blues Dancing Scene where she can be an organizer or potentially a professional dance teacher on the side.
Marlee isn’t just a fantastic dancer and engineer, she also enjoys freelance tutoring in the math and science fields, and works as a grader for a favorite math professor of hers. Along with dancing, she also loves science and fiction books, though finding time to read can be difficult with her busy schedule as she is part of the Honors Program on campus. Marlee is passionate about Aerospace Engineering and inspires others to pursue their passions because she knows the power that comes with being a woman in engineering.