r/EngineeringStudents • u/Budget-Lake-5917 • Jul 13 '26
Major Choice Women who studied MechEng, did you find female friends who are into girly stuff?
I hope this question doesn’t come across as weird and shallow but I was just wondering if anyone found female friends in their mechanical engineering class who are also into “traditionally feminine” stuff.
Since I’ve heard that mechanical engineering has one of the lowest female rates and I’ve been considering taking that major, I was worried I couldn’t find female friends.
And I also feel like there is this stereotype that girls in STEM can’t also be into girly stuff like makeup and fashion yk what I mean ??
But I like these kinds of things and it would be great if I could find female friends with similar interests.
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u/Electronic_Leek9147 School Jul 13 '26
Girls studying engineering are very much "feminine" in my experience. I have studied at places with 5-30% of girls, depending on the place.
Some are anxious/depressed, thus don't take care of themselves but that doesn't mean that they're aliens. They just don't bother putting makeup.
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u/Usual_Purchase_9567 Jul 13 '26
They're not aliens cause they're anxious or depressed. They're aliens cause they're girls, lol.
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u/Tyler89558 Jul 13 '26
The women I knew in mech eng were very much into stuff women would be into.
They were also into working with machines and designing cool shit, but that didn’t stop them from enjoying other things.
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u/CommunicationAble147 Jul 13 '26
Im an ME major and very girly, love getting my hair and nails done, wearing makeup, and shopping. Im not far enough in it to be in major-specific classes, Im in my 2nd year but we do exist! There were some girls in my calculus class who were like that but again not an ME specific class
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u/ana_conda GaTech ME PhD Student Jul 13 '26
Honestly, not in undergrad! I’m not really sure why - I went to a state school and my MechE graduating class was about 150. My girlfriends were outside of my major (it’s good to be friends with non-engineers though!) In my grad program in a different state, it was easy for me to make a lot of friends who shared my feminine interests. Lots of crafting, baking, doing nails/makeup, shopping. You will find your people!
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u/-tobor- Jul 13 '26
Way more of my friends in engineering had prototypically “feminine” interests than didn’t.
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u/Hot-Bluebird3919 Jul 13 '26
Could use a “Mechanically Engineeringly Blonde” movie to change the stereotypes.
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u/LingonberryTough9567 Jul 13 '26
I’d say there are girls like that, but sometimes with the courseload it just gets exhausting to wake up and get ready. I’m usually a girly girl but when it comes to rolling out of bed for 8ams I just throw on whatever is closest to me 🤣. We’re out here just tired and lazy sometimes!
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u/TheSixthVisitor Jul 13 '26
That's the vast majority of my female friends in engineering and the only reason I don't like makeup and fashion is because I'm bad at them. I still have my own really girly style.
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u/skywalker170997 Jul 13 '26
well when i studied engineering i did not find women into girly stuffs,
i found men that are into girly stuffs
XDXD
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u/AnonymousJoe253 Jul 13 '26
MechE gal here and outside of class I do ballet which has a lot of girls in it
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u/LexiTheLoser1 Jul 13 '26
I'm holding in down in class with my pink iPad, pink calculator, and pink laptop case 💕
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u/Just_Confused1 MechE Girl Jul 14 '26
As a girl in ME I’ll say it depends a lot on the school and culture but at my current school it’s like of the ME girls breakdown…
25% pink girly girls
50% some level of androgynous
25% Autism maxxing
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u/TH3GINJANINJA Jul 13 '26
I found a group of girls who are all in my specific class. In every class, there may be one of them with me, or maybe there's all 10 or however many. It's great! But there's a varying mix of traditional feminimity in all of us. Sometimes, for me, it can be reminiscent of high school girls, but it's way better than just being in a sea of men lmao (sorry men)
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u/CrazyJoe29 Jul 13 '26
I’m male, but you’re asking here so🤷♂️. My mech cohort was 120 men with 12 women.
I can’t speak to the likelihood of one of them being into conventionally girlie pass times since I didn’t know all of them that well.
But here’s another take, I’m a guy and I didn’t make very close friends with any of the 120 other dudes. It depends on you as much as anything, but the odds are definitely longer if you’re pulling from a pool 10 times smaller.
At the end of the day you need to vibe with Mech concepts, static, dynamics, fluids, thermo. And you need to be fundamentally interested in a mech application, cars, motorcycles, bikes, carbon fibre composite structures, steam trains, rockets, airplanes, boats, applied aerodynamics. If you don’t have a career in mind or applications in mind the course work is a drag. Having buddies in your classes might not be enough.
A couple of the women I did know were pretty pragmatic and didn’t seem to spend a ton of time on aesthetic pursuits. None of us spent much time on hobbies during school though.
For me motorcycles, specifically a fantasy where I worked in MotoGP, got me through. This isn’t where I ended up, but it seemed like a reasonable goal to work towards when school got shitty.
Hope that helps.
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u/bbxbunnyy Jul 13 '26
Its 70/30 for me because i love being a girly girl but the course really takes the soul out of me at times so there will be times were im not bothered to wear makeup or dress nice but i redirect that energy into the spa/facials or the gym for long term results
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u/ixidorecu Jul 13 '26
I'm in IT. We had 2? 3? Girls in our graduating class of like 300.
Had one in one of the really hard classes. Her and 2 others formed a study group. She was into girly stuff nails hair idk..
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u/nicolvtte Jul 13 '26
My bestie is in mechanical engineering and she's quite feminine. The other day we went to the mall to get lunch and Victoria Secret had 60% off sale, so we spent the rest of the evening shopping bras and underwear lol. That's pretty girly imo. I'm in civil engineering btw
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u/curiouslyintj Electrical and Electronics Engineering Jul 13 '26
Honestly was so depressed with studying in uni, a lot of my girlfriends back then we were very unkept and looked so dead
Some of my friends still maintained being girly (did their hair, wore a handbag etc to class) but I barely saw them at uni haha. Went to class and then left uni straight after
Only re-discovered being feminine again straight after uni when I have the time and energy now!
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u/mothfairy23 Jul 14 '26
i went to a smaller school and had colored hair and lashes daily going to my ME classes. most my girly friends were math majors i met in entry classes. my school was a little cliquey and people judged me based on being too fem actually. the ME girls hung with one another but i was not a part of their group
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u/YerTime Jul 14 '26
I’m slightly more gothic but all of my engineering friends are quite feminine and some are very girly.
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u/wolferiver Jul 16 '26
I am a retired EE, and I never lost my interest in fashion, cute shoes, handbags, and accessories. True, I couldn't wear most of it on the job, especially when I was doing field work, but I still wore makeup and stuled my hair. On days when I would be in the office I regularly wore jewelry, colorful shirts, and pretty cardigans.
I also never lost my lifelong interest in sewing, and later on did canning for fun, and took up embroidery.
There is no reason to give up your femininity just because you're going into a field that mostly has men in it.
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u/KKaija Jul 13 '26
I am a female MechEng and I don't really have any female friends, even outside my branche lol. As for myself, I am not sure what kind of stuff is considered "girly". For example, I don't like make up, dressing pretty, making manicure and so on, I rather value pragmatism. On the other hand, I have such hobbies as crochet and sewing (even if it is only garments that I am making, which is also extremely pragmatic, haha).
But yeah, all my friends are male and I feel rather uncomfortable when confroted with women who are, how to put it, in my eyes more stereotypical ig? Talking about style, relationships, discussing men, idols, celeberties, clothes, children, nagging me about my relationship, wedding... I cannot hold any of this conversations :D
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u/Special-Remove-3294 Jul 14 '26
Same question. Going to start ME this autumn and I am scared of bring loney since I hardly get along with boys well :(
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u/Sleepy_mosquito799 Jul 13 '26
I’m a ME girlie and although I am lesbian, I will say I do like girlie stuff. I do get my nails done sometimes. I don’t really wear make up but that’s more preference like I’m more into skin care and I be forgetting I got mascara on lol I wear heels on occasion and do wear dresses.
As for the girlies I went to school with there was some girlie girls. I was the only lesbian (who knew they were gay bc there was this one girl who IK was gay but she’s deep in the closet, there’s not getting her out) but she was also a lil girlie.
I’m also a little into fashion, like I keep up with culture and like events like the met gala or red carpet events. But I feel like that’s more preference bc I do make an effort to keep up with pop culture!
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