They also coordinate ESU's annual Expanding Your Horizons conference and Sonia Kovalevsky Math Day, which encourage girls to investigate and pursue careers in science and mathematics. A similar program will be offered the following year for girls who will enter the eighth and ninth grades in the fall of 2001. The women professionals will represent such career choices as being a doctor, a chemist, an environmental scientist, an engineer, a mathematician, a telecommunications expert, and a computer scientist. As we become a more technological society, people will need to have strong backgrounds in mathematics and the sciences.
Women are greatly underrepresented in most careers that are mathematically or scientifically based.
This may be partly due to what we see young women doing during their high school years. Also, the program will include career discussions, field trips to corporate partners, and assertiveness and self-esteem training. In addition, a listserv will be used to maintain ongoing dialogue among the project staff, women professionals, and the young women participants. Although each year ESU's one-day conference, Expanding Your Horizons, has been highly praised by participants and their parents, we saw that more should be done. Interacting with women professionals can be a life-changing experience.