When Troy Alvarado, a sophomore in textiles and clothing, decided to join declare his major, he knew that most of his classes would be dominated by women. The opposite can be said for Jennifer Cullen, a junior in industrial and systems engineering, that her classes would be made up of mostly men.
Alvarado is part of a growing number of men choosing fields with just a handful of their own gender, overwhelmed by students of the opposite sex. Again, the opposite can be said of Cullen. She is part of a declining number of women once choosing fields dominated by men.
Ten or 15 years ago, these majors, among others, would have only a small fraction of students choosing courses of study in fields dominated mostly by the opposite sex. But in majors such as textiles and clothing, nursing and even pharmacy, there is an increasing number of students who choose to brave classrooms traditionally populated by the other half.
Pharmacy, up until the early 1980s, was dominated primarily by men, according to Kenneth Hale, Assistant Dean at the OSU College of Pharmacy. After 1981, such enrollments were dominated by women - and one of the first areas of study for women to hold a majority enrollment in a field once reserved for men.
In 1990, 58 percent of professional students in pharmacy were women, and has since jumped to 69 percent in 2005, Hale said.
National trends, which are more than apparent at OSU, can also be attributed to a growing number of options, and greater demand for gender-minority students, Hale said.
"Pharmacy provides a profession in which practitioners are able to balance work commitments with their personal life," he said.
Ashley McCabe, a senior in pharmaceutical sciences, said pharmacy is becoming a more attractive field to women because it has the reputation of being a major where you can have a career and still raise a family.
"I can be a part-time pharmacist and still be a mom," McCabe said.
Hale said changes in the pharmaceutical professions have made the field more appealing to women.
"The major change in this field that may have contributed to an increasing interest on the part of women is the shift towards 'pharmaceutical care' models of practice, in which pharmacists practice in much more of a patient-centered mode," Hale said. "This profession was once primarily concerned about the preparation and dispensing of medicinal products.
"It is now much more concerned with the education of patients and other health professionals, the monitoring of drug therapies and helping to ensure positive outcomes from medicines."
The College of Pharmacy is not alone in having a growing number of female students, at least until a few quarters ago.
OSU seemed to be following a national trend in gender-minority growth. Since 1979, the percentage of women versus men in engineering nationwide has jumped from 12 percent to more than 20 percent in 2000, according to the National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators study.
But in the last few years, the nation has seen a decrease in the numbers of women going into engineering. The enrollment of undergraduate women in engineering has declined at OSU from 2001 to 2005, according to Glenda La Rue, director of Women in Engineering.
But a slight decline in the last handful of tears does not deter Cullen and her fellow female students from attending class, even though their gender may be outnumbered.
"I don't feel weird in class at all," Cullen said. "Sometimes it's better because teachers will remember you quicker because there are so fewer girls."
Enrollment of women in the School of Engineering was 825 during fall quarter 2005, or about 16 percent of the college's total enrollment, according to the Women in Engineering Web site.
Cullen also said she chose the field because of the opportunities for women in engineering after graduating.
"Being a woman in a field dominated by men, you'll get noticed by employers because you definitely stand out in a crowd," she said, "and employers are continually trying to diversify their companies."
Alvarado, whose clothing and textiles major probably gets a quicker glance-over by potential male students than engineering, also feels very at home in classes utterly ruled by women.
"There are about seven or eight guys in a class with anywhere between 60 and 70 girls in one class," Alvarado said.
Alvarado added that the emergence of clothing lines targeted more towards men in recent years is responsible for the growth trend.
"The fashion realm has been extended greatly toward the male population for the last few decades when designers such as Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger started designing clothes geared toward men's fashion," he said.
Unlike engineering and pharmacy, females might find it easier than men to find a job because the fashion industry is still directed so much towards women's fashion, Alvarado said.
"Who knows women's fashion better than women? But [men] are starting to see more male designers and more runway shows with male lines in them," he said. "When it comes to employment, I think it depends on who's better fit for the job."
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