notable, but recent, movement into engineering within the past few decades. According to the Society of Women Engineers, women and other minorities constituted approximately 16%-17% of engineering graduate students from 1990 to 2003. Furthermore, in 2003 approximately 20% (approximately 12,000)of new engineers were women, compared with about 80% of men (approximately 49,000). According to the ASEE, the top 10 colleges producing women engineers: Georgia Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of Michigan Purdue University Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Ohio State University Pennsylvania State University University of Florida Texas A&M University Cornell University Explanations for low participation rates Numerous explanations have come forth to account for the lack of women engineering majors in college. Historically, women have both majored and remained in college engineering programs at lower rates than men. One of the reasons used to explain this trend has been a supposed overemphasis on the traditional "male breadwinner" household model when it comes to organizing families today. Although the percentage of families organized according to this model has declined considerably in recent decades, many individuals, including women, still see adult men as the primary wage earners in households where men were present. Even if this is the case women represent close to 60% of university graduates, including biology mayors. IES: What is the percentage of degrees conferred by race and sex? Recently, greater emphasis has been given to women’s socialization throughout their childhood and adolescence years. Socialized early in their childhoods, girls are said to be raised in societies where science, engineering, and mathematical fields are largely promoted as being “male professions”. The media has also been criticized for giving little representation of females within the industry. Instead, some scholars feel that the media is guilty of perpetuating gender stereotypes by representing women in traditional “female occupations” such as nurses, school teachers, and housewives. Men help feed into this because they feel as if women aren't cut out for traditional engineering roles but rather one's where they don't have as much responsibility associated directly with the job itself. This idea is supported by a study where STEM field applicants were given a first and second choice on their majors. The results showed that women were more likely to pick male dominated fields in their second choice rather than in their first. This study found that orientations toward certain fields of study were less segregated than actual behaviors, suggesting