Automotive technology at Citrus College is dominated by men but women in the program surely do not let them steal the wheel.
Automotive technology professor Dave Brown said a normal class size typically has 10 percent or less female enrollment.
“Obviously it’s a moving target where sometimes you have a little bit more, sometimes you have none,” Brown said. “We do outreach that I don’t think specifically targets any particular group audience.”
However, Brown said they hope to get more participation from high school students.
Low representation does not stop women from embracing the program.
A recent alumna started working full-time for Banks Engineering, an industry partner to the program, soon after graduation.
Brown said “it has spawned them to become very excited about hiring from us because she is such a high quality employee.”
Greg Lipp, an automotive technology professor, also praised female graduates.
“Our young ladies that finish the program typically are very successful,” Lipp said.
Brown said t an interesting dynamic occasionally in the classroom: men have trouble asking questions, whereas the women do not.
“I think it’s a male thing, there’s a certain ego, ‘I’m already supposed to know that’ type of response,” Brown said.
Brown said women will just ask questions if they do not understand something.
“The young ladies don’t seem to suffer from that ailment,” Brown said.
A Citrus alumnus who completed the automotive technology program in 2002, Priscilla Englert, now runs her own auto tech program at Bonita High School.
Englert said in an email as a little girl she was always interested in things she could fix.
“I could remember playing with bikes, skateboards, roller blades, then anything I could get my hands on to figure out how it worked, maintain, then how to keep on the road,” Englert said.
Englert said she had to learn how to take care of her car once she started driving if she wanted to keep it.
“My parents didn’t necessarily have the means of buying me a new car or maintaining a car I would eventually get, so I had to figure that out if I was to drive, so I did,” Englert said.
Englert said she is grateful for the program at Citrus.
“It was a great opportunity for me to learn as much as I could about a machine I wanted to learn about in order to make a living as well as how to make one go faster, be stronger, better, etcetera,” Englert said.
Englert said she never was unaware of or concerned with gender discrimination in the classroom.
After graduating from Citrus, Englert completed her B.S. degree in Industrial Technology at Cal State Los Angeles.
She said she was involved in a bicycle crash that motivated her to switch from engineering to teaching.
Englert said she never thought she would be a teacher, but is grateful for the opportunity to teach young people something she is passionate about.
Englert said she wants to lead by example for young girls in the industry and hopes that more girls will pursue their interests despite gender bias in some professions.
