The greatest demand for professional profiles is in STEM areas, be they men or women

In general, from childhood we tend to be better at science or letters. However, our learning capacity at these ages is so high that anything that encourages or motivates us makes us pry and pay more attention to that topic. The greatest demand for professional profiles is in STEM areas, be they men or women.

In the same way that there are children who are not attracted to books and when they grow up they are great readers, always guiding them at first with topics and authors that they like. At these ages, there must be teachers who know how to transmit mathematics and science, families who encourage playing with games of mathematical skills and adults, in general, who see numbers, logic and science as something "normal" that exists. to be incorporated into the daily lives of children. To know how to motivate a boy or a girl, the first thing of all is to put yourself in his or her shoes.

Removing the initiator, the normal thing is that as children we want to be firefighters, policemen, teachers, doctors, waiters, film directors. Some brave people take risks and want to be scientists or inventors. And, in recent years and thanks to the introduction of technologies and learning through games in classrooms, there are already those who want to dedicate themselves to programming or robotics. But have you ever heard a boy or a girl who wants to be a mathematician, physicist, analyst ...? In general, these are not usually inspiring careers for children of either gender.

When they reach teenagers, many boys want to be like their dads or follow the pattern of the men around them. However, what if in adolescence the majority of science teachers were women? Or that the moms were the ones who were mostly dedicated to working in STEM areas? Most likely, the girls wanted to follow the pattern of their mothers and were not so rejected by a "difficult" profession and with the cliché that it is destined and dominated by men.

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It is true that in the trend for STEM studies there is an increase in the incorporation of women. At least, we did notice it in our most demanded master of the last two years, the Master in Web Analytics and Big Data, which coincides with the fact that it is one of the most demanded profiles by companies). But much remains to be done and it is necessary to start incentivizing from adolescence.

In the 21st century the reality is that more than half of the university degrees in Spain are named after women. However, there is still a significant amount of talent that is lost, as many women do not risk studying STEM, which they would be very good at, and sacrifice their future with other types of studies or directly entering the job market.

There are different reasons why a young woman does not choose STEM studies. One of the most recognized is that they think that all the syllabi are going to be mathematics and that scares them, but it is not true, not everything is mathematics and numbers.

We can turn the tables on the reasons to try to make this minimum number of STEM students equal in a few years, since there are many reasons to prepare for STEM studies. The first must be that of taste, since studying (and then working) for years something that does not attract you can turn into the worst nightmare you have. Then there are other more material ones, such as salary superiority with respect to most jobs or the possibility of progress and innovation in companies, apart from the fact that they are usually profiles in which unemployment rates are much lower than rest.

For their part, companies must also make their contribution. Although we talk a lot about equality, the truth is that in many companies a sexist culture is maintained and women's access to certain positions is not encouraged. It is a fight against the current in which many women lose the battle along the way because they do not find the support or the strength to continue swimming.

I hope that within a few years it will happen to us as in medicine, which has gone from being a typical men's career to that the consultations are full of urologists, cardiologists, allergists, neurologists, etc., and hospitals of surgeons who save lives daily.

Always supported and promoted equal conditions and access to jobs and we try daily with an internship program in companies so that all students who wish to join the labor market can do so fairly, based on their knowledge and in the tasks that they must develop.