by Simone E., Editor-in-Chief Since Black Panther has premiered and has inspired so many, both young and old, let’s talk about some other black superheroes: black engineers. While Princess Shuri may lead Wakanda in her engineering and technological advancements, in America, the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) field is severely lacking in it’s minority population. According to a study done by National Science Foundation, in 2015, out of 1,716,000 Black or African American persons, only 45,000 had a Bachelor’s in an Engineering field, 26,000 had a Master’s, and only 3,000 had a Doctorate. (Compared to 808,000 for Bachelor’s, 343,000 for Master’s, and 59,000 for Doctorate for White people).
There are a few black engineers on campus, but the numbers are scarce. According to Saama Davies, he’s the only African American electrical engineer in the classes that he takes in graduate school. He also stated that he may be the only one period, but it’s possible that he may have somehow just missed them. He expressed that there are a few students who may not identify as African American, but African, as there are a few students who are from another country. For many, especially on a predominantly-white institution such as UTC, being the only black person in your class isn’t something new, but to be the only black person in your whole program? Unfortunately, that’s also not something that’s new, and for many, that can be very discouraging. For Davies, he knows that that’s what he’ll encounter in the real world. “From what I’ve seen in the world, through my internships, this is not really a misrepresentation. There’s a lack of people of color in the engineering field.” Davies wants to go into “electronics” and he wanted the opportunity to get more experience in his field through graduate school. He’s happy with the program that he’s in and has stated that with each passing year, UTC has improved itself in terms of adding new teachers, adjusting curriculum, and creating different structures for classes that makes it easier to get more out of the program. Considering the fact that he is getting so much out of the program, why aren’t more minorities interested in the field? Davies felt as though there are a “lot of people who are qualified and dedicated enough to be engineers, and could make a name for themselves in the field, but it’s not happening: it’s not really an option in their mind.” Davies explained that it goes into a bigger issue of American education and the amount of exposure to engineering that black students receive, or lack thereof. “When you open kids’ minds to all of the different possibilities of what a STEM major can be, whether that’s coding, podcasting, or making movies, it can be a kind of lightbulb moment.” Davies recently started working at TechTown, a company in Chattanooga that does just that: exposes minority students to computer science and engineering in the hopes of that lightbulb moment. Davies claimed that he’s no superhero, and that he’s just an “average” guy, but there’s definitely something that we should all be thanking him for: working in the community to expose minority students to his field, and paving the way for more black engineers to follow in his footsteps. If you don’t believe that Black engineers are indeed superheroes, read this link: https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/famous-black-engineers.htm “Data Tables.” Data Tables - nsf.Gov - Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering - NCSES - US National Science Foundation (NSF), National Science Foundation, 1 Jan. 2017, www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/data.cfm.
1 Comment
You should be ashamed
2/5/2023 07:34:56 pm
You really published an article about a rapist. great job
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