I was walking back from one of the buildings that I tend to, to my office earlier today (consequently, my office is located right next to the dorms), and I overheard a conversation someone was having. Actually, I didn’t overhear it, I was made a part of it because she was blabbing on her cell phone, but that’s another topic. Anyways, it was obvious she was talking to her parents, and she was talking about various aspects of school. The one that really caught my attention though was when she started talking about how difficult UIUC was.
Somehow, she then progressed on to how the engineering school is practically impossible. At times, it was hard to not to laugh out loud. But wait folks, it gets better. Because the engineering school is so hard, that is why there aren’t any females in it. It’s because they can’t take the pressure. Now, at this point, I’m starting to think to myself, “What makes males and females different that one can take the pressure, and the other can’t?” Granted, I’m not a female, so I can’t really say anything from their perspective, but from mine I can’t think of any. I was tempted to turn around and just flat out ask if she thought females were less competent than males, because that’s the impression I was getting. Then, she went on to talk about how she has a bunch of friends that were going to be doctors, but because of their grades, they weren’t going to be able to follow that path, and instead become nurses.
Now, in my mind, this girl was obviously a freshman, along with many of her friends. It just seemed like such a closed-minded thing to be babbling about. It definitely made me wonder what her major is because after she talked about her friends wanting to be doctors, she started fighting with the person on the other end about her not wanting to be a pharmacist, but instead a medical researcher.
I don’t know, that sounds like a lot of pressure, you think you can handle it? I mean, you are female. 🙄