History Highlight: BC Women in STEM
Ever since Bakersfield College first began in 1913 at a branch of one of the local high schools, thousands upon thousands of students have made that crucial first step in achieving their dreams right here in the Central Valley. Kern County ranks fourth in the nation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) jobs, due in large part to the Agriculture and Energy industries that thrive in the Central Valley. At Bakersfield College, general biological science degrees ranked the third most awarded in 2022, and 62% of all graduates were women. However, in 2018 the Kern Economic Development Foundation found that, while women make up 24% of total STEM employment in California, in Kern County that number is a bit lower at only 18%.
There are many reasons this discrepancy could exist, but to get an insider perspective on the issue we turned to Bakersfield College’s (BC) very own women in STEM. BC is lucky to have some truly remarkable individuals- staff and students included. It’s readily apparent as soon as you step foot on this campus that it is an environment that attracts some of the brightest minds in Kern County- and beyond. Women like Professor Maryam Jalali-Farahani, who graduated from one of the most prestigious schools in Iran and had a long, varied path collecting real-world experience to impart on the next generation before she landed here at Bakersfield College. Some, like Lily Fakrogha, who are training here to become the next generation of doctors and changemakers in the world. And some, like Cheryl Scott, aren’t in STEM but have made some incredible local changes, by encouraging countless young girls to pursue STEM via her immense experience with development and coordination. Even though these women come from unique backgrounds, they faced very similar challenges in their journey: the massive time commitment and pressures, familial and childcare, lack of access due to gendered expectations, and lack of representation.
Maryam Jalali-Farahani, a professor of Engineering, received her Master’s in Material Science and Engineering from the Sharif Institute of Technology in Iran and worked in the engineering industry for over a decade. Her love for STEM started early; “The first spark was in high school because I really loved math and physics … My dad would always be fixing things and I would always go and sit beside him and watch how he does it, fascinated.” Engineering seemed a logical career path, so she pursued that. Being the only female engineering professor at BC and advisor for the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) club, she has a unique perspective on the campus perception of Women in STEM. Before becoming a professor, she gained her experience in the field, working for the materials industry as a corrosion, mechanical, and materials engineer. She changed careers from engineer to professor at Bakersfield College so she would have more time to spend with her family.
Lily Fakrogha, a third year Biology student at BC, is working towards becoming a pediatric surgeon. She is a prime example of the motivation, hard work, and determination that typifies BC STEM students. She’s got big dreams, she aspires to open an orphanage, potentially in her home country of Nigeria, and run a clinic to improve the healthcare of the children that inspired her to take the pediatric surgery route. And she works tirelessly to make those dreams a reality. Just a handful of the campus programs she was involved in at the time of this interview. She works in the Surgery, Trauma, and ACS Research Program (STAR) at KMC, vice president of the pre-med club, a member of the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE), and in the Math Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA) and Medical Professionals Pipeline Programs (MPPP).
According to a study done by the University of California, STEM students, on average, tend to be more involved in extracurricular academic activities, such as internships and study groups. Though it’s difficult to say if this is because of the expectations of STEM students to be high achievers, the high academic standards, or personal preference. Suffice to say, most STEM students know that they have an arduous path ahead of them when they declare themselves a STEM major. However, one of the common threads we heard as the main contributor of girls dropping their STEM aspirations was the immense pressure put on women and girls, and how it compounds with the immense pressures of STEM students.
“It's so hard to finish your STEM degree because it requires a lot of study time,” Jalali-Farahani said. “A lot of being out of home, paying for your courses, paying for your textbooks, taking care of your family. After you get your degree, you have so much flexibility, and you can provide a better life for yourself, but you just need to get through it. I mean, it's not easy. It's not easy at all.”
Fakrogha, expanding on this point, detailed her upcoming route to becoming a doctor; “Right now I’m an undergrad… I still have two more phases of four years to go through, so I have to worry. So, it's like, after passing my bachelors, I have to worry about passing medical school, and after passing medical school, I have to worry about residency. After residency, I have to worry about everything that follows.”
Cheryl Scott worked for 15 years at the Kern Economic Development Corporation/Foundation (KEDF) where she assisted in several major STEM initiatives in Kern County to make the path less intimidating for students like Fakrogha. Through KEDF, Cheryl and her team researched heavily on rates of STEM employment in Kern County, particularly rates of employment for Women in STEM. Through her research she found one reason women weren’t pursuing STEM is because they just simply didn’t have the time.
“When a woman is working 60 hours a week in their career, and they've got childcare, and if they're part of the sandwich generation where they've got children to care for and aging parents to care for, something has to give…,” Scott said.
Jalali-Farahani concurred, “a good portion of the students [are] single moms, So in addition to working, supporting your family, you have to care for little children. And then you have these long hours of studies and the class… They work really, really hard. And I see how much sacrifice they do to just make it through with all these commitments. But really, really, it could stop you from continuing your major.”
Kern County and Bakersfield College have a high population of rural students, especially with BC’s satellite campuses. Rural students tend to face a different set of challenges than students who live near institutions like Bakersfield College. Beyond physical limitations, such as transportation, difficulty accessing resources such as reliable internet or even electricity in some cases, and higher rates of poverty, there is also a vast cultural difference between rural and nonrural students.
Rural areas typically see more women in parental roles like this. Women and young girls often take on household chores, younger sibling care, aging parent care, in addition to any labor needed on farms or ranches. According to the Food and Agriculture Association of the United Nations, women are responsible for half of all food production, while having limited access to land ownership, credit, and educational opportunities. All this extra work for young girls, on top of the lack of available education resources in rural areas, makes it difficult for them to get a quality education.
In the US, this issue may not be as dire, but it is certainly still prevalent. Higher Education Today found that only 38% of rural women had jobs making over $40,000/yr, while 46% of urban women did. Comparatively, for both rural and urban men this number was the same- 61%. Additionally, the National Center for Education Statistics found that rural students compared to nonrural students had lower rates of advanced mathematics credits (85% vs 93%), and rural students had very rarely taken an engineering or technology course (5% vs 15%). Educational outcomes were telling, too; only 19% of rural adults had bachelor’s degrees, compared to ~38% of urban adults.
In California, 35% of school districts are considered rural. Only 29% of California rural students complete adequate coursework to attend public universities, compared to 50% of non-rural students.
Bakersfield College has made it easier for women to pursue higher education in rural areas, with the opening of the Delano and Arvin campus, but the KEDF sought to close the gap for younger girls. So, when Cheryl and the KEDF developed an action plan, they created the Buttonwillow Girl’s STEM Mentorship program. Their goal was to connect young girls with professional women in STEM and go on STEM-based adventures with their mentor to inspire them and foster lifelong enthusiasm. The women in the STEM community of Bakersfield turned out in a big way, too.
“We probably had 60 people show up [to the first informational meeting] because they wanted to learn more about the status of women and girls as it relates to STEM. Because they were people who were interested in STEM and they wanted to participate. And a lot of them did. I think we had probably 25 people sign up for the mentoring program from the get-go,” Scott said.
The trick to inspiring the girls to pursue STEM, they found, was to just offer them opportunities and to be an example for the children. “Our women met with the girls monthly and communicated with the girls and encouraged them… some of those girls had not even had the opportunity to see the ocean before… some of the mentors got out there with them, kicking up the water and just having fun together and just, you know, enjoying each other's company.”
Most children are naturally drawn to STEM fields. A 2017 survey found that half of children under 12 dream of jobs in STEM fields. Their developing minds are endlessly curious about the natural world, and sometimes all it takes is solid encouragement, and seeing that someone who is like them has accomplished what they aspire to do, to help them achieve their goals.
KEDF and Scott’s work didn’t end with rural initiatives, though. They started an annual Career and STEM Expo that, in 2024, had over 600 Kern County employers networking with local middle and high school students. They also have an ongoing Speakers Bureau and work closely with the Kern Economic Development Corporation to create jobs in Kern County.
After fostering a lasting childhood interest in STEM, Maryam Jalali-Farahani and the WISE Club fill in for that next big step in a person’s career, college. The WISE club meets every Friday in the Science and Engineering building and the range of activities they do go from quiet group study sessions, networking with local professionals, to working on research and engineering projects.
Student Organizations represent an incredibly important part of the college experience. The University of California found that students who participated in clubs had a higher GPA on average than students who did not, and first year retention rates were 3-5 points higher as well. Clubs also teach an important skill that can be difficult to learn elsewhere – leadership. Each club, including WISE, has a minimum of three leadership positions for students to fill and gain vital experience in being in charge of an operation.
WISE and other campus clubs, in short, are building confidence in students that they will have the skills to succeed in their careers outside of college, through the tasks that they perform in clubs. This building of confidence is an incredibly important tool for a woman entering the STEM field, as oftentimes they will find their confidence tested.
Jalali-Farahani, even with her decade of in-field experience and 6 years of experience as a professor, still faces adversity. “I'm a professor… and I see from students that they think as a female instructor, ‘oh, she doesn't know what she's talking about.’”
Imposter syndrome is an issue amongst many individuals, but women in STEM, regardless of how much experience they have, will find themselves constantly having to prove their ability while simultaneously getting spoken over to the point where that little voice of doubt can become a self-imposed reflex. This was an experience Jalali-Farahani had, and she used it as a learning experience in growing her own confidence.
“At the beginning, when I started my career, I would get intimidated when I'm showing up in class and I see somebody, I'm like, are they going to trust me? Are they going to believe I'm enough? Am I enough? Am I enough? But then after years and years of practice, you're like, oh, no, I'm enough. I'm enough. I know what I’m doing.”
Additionally, for some women in STEM like Fakrogha, who wants children of her own one day, she worries about the work-life balance that many in the STEM field can struggle with. “I do want to start a family and that's something that's important to me I just don't know how it's gonna happen and I pray that I am blessed with a partner who's also able to support because I really do want to make my dreams come true and I have a big dream that I really want to accomplish, but at the same time I don't want my dreams to in any way alter the relationship I'm going to have with my kids and my partner.”
A culture change is needed to get more women in STEM, and it would appear as though that culture change is already in progress, albeit slow going. More and more companies now offer parental leave for men, and sociologists at BYU found that younger fathers nowadays are more emotionally involved and engaged with their children, and the last few decades have shown that this trend is rising. This takes the onus of childcare off the mother’s shoulders and allows her more freedom to pursue the more time-intensive STEM degrees.
Another major factor that Fakrogha stressed would help with this was representation.
“If you have a balance of women, and if the men listen to the women and women listen to the men then there's equality in the people who make the rules. Then, I think, things are 100 percent gonna get better. You're gonna have more girls starting from a young age believe they can pursue a career in the stem fields. They will see role models- women who have done so successfully while balancing their careers and personal lives completely following their passions…like real-life Barbies showing they can achieve their dream while being fulfilled!”
She also stressed that representation for Women in STEM doesn’t end in STEM areas either.
“It’s not like it’s just to put more people or women in places… Like, since Cindy, [the president of the Student Government Association at the time of the interview] has been on the board I feel STEM students are more represented because there are issues that we go through that she also sees as a STEM student herself. Our representation means someone's voice is actually being heard for the first time, and changes are happening on our behalf to improve our quality of education!”
These changes have resulted in a new crop of highly skilled women in STEM fields. But one can’t help but to mourn the countless women who had the potential to be the next Einstein but changed course because they were forced into a life that society expected of them, not that they wanted for themselves. Or because they were too poor to pay for tuition or transportation, or because they live in a country that oppresses women just because they were born as women. But for some, it isn’t too late. Cheryl Scott, who earned her master’s degree at 50 after her children left for college, said this, “A person is never too old to learn, develop new interests, and even consider a career change. Being a lifelong learner just opens up new interests and doors for your entire life.”
Bakersfield College is an incredible school because of the diverse students and faculty of all ages and backgrounds who come every week and work towards a future where becoming a scientist, engineer, or mathematician is accessible to anyone, regardless of age, gender, finances, familial obligations, or location. Since its inception, BC has been producing some of the finest professionals in the valley. It’s not easy work; the requirements are constantly changing and reforming, the industries are transforming, the sciences are advancing, and the needs of the students are evolving. Bakersfield College is cresting the waves, though, because of the dedicated staff and students who are demanding more, and putting in the work to ensure that more is achieved.
Professor Maryam Jalali-Farahini and Cheryl Scott are making sure that women and girls in Bakersfield feel empowered and confident to pursue STEM, and making sure they have the resources to push them to achieve their goals. Lily Fakrogha and the WISE club are listening to their fellow students and making the effort to make sure that not only they themselves can reach for their dreams, but their peers and future generations can too.
