July 8 - 12 was GetSET Week this year at San Jose State University!

GetSET shows high school girls of under-represented ethnic groups the creative, exciting, and essential world of engineering. We encourage them to go to college and to study science and technology. A video about the GetSET program can be viewed here: GetSET video.  For more information, please visit the GetSet main website: http://www.getset.org

History

GetSET was started in 1992 as an extension of the Higher Education Outreach Program funded by NASA. That program was extremely effective in encouraging girls to stay in math and science classes throughout high school. The Society of Women Engineers, Santa Clara Valley, decided to continue to build on the valuable lessons we learned so that we could reach more girls on an ongoing basis.

Results

We survey our participants one year after they graduate from the GetSET program, and as they are graduating high school. We have found that 100% of them do go on to college. And 25% of those do go on to study technical fields. This is a remarkable success rate given that their demographics have a 10 to 22% high school drop out rate, and only about 20% of all women regardless of ethnicity go into technical fields. See these sites for more information on statistics:

• U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
• US National Science Foundation,
• The Society of Women Engineers, research page.

• be female 
• be in the eighth grade 
• be a member of an under-represented group in the engineering profession: African American, Alaskan native, American Indian, Pacific Islander, Filipino, or Latina 
• be taking math and science classes 
• demonstrate an interest in studying math and science throughout high school and into college 
• demonstrate an interest in this program by going through the interview process

Components

• Students participate in the program all 4 years of high school. 
• Students attend SummerWeek, which is an engineering camp at which the students do hands-on activities. 
• Students attend other activities through out the year, such as leadership camp, sessions on college applications, and other activities. 
• Students meet and interact with successful women role model working in technology fields. They get answers to their questions about what engineering is like and how to become an engineer.