As the impending end of Term 2 and the midyear exams have begun kicking off student study sessions and late night cramming sessions, it is also the time of year for underclassmen and Juniors to select electives for the next upcoming school year. With a vast and varied selection of courses to choose from: Art, Music, and other major subject courses, students have plenty of choices that can best satisfy their interests and skills they need for their future.
However, in recent years, especially this 2025—2026 school year, there has been a very noticeable gender divide amongst BHS STEM courses, as observed by the Director of Science at BHS, Dr. Clifford, and BHS science teacher Mr. Dembrow.
“Engineering does trend toward more male students than female.”
After analyzing the engineering course, BHS science faculty made the educated determination that most of the students who selected enrollment in engineering were male.
“We recognized this and have been trying to encourage more female students to take the course,” explained Dr. Clifford and Mr. Dembrow.
Wanting to teach the fundamentals of engineering to not just boys, but also to girls, Mr. Dembrow and other science teachers have been promoting engineering to more female students through discussions of the multiple career routes that stem from pertaining skills in engineering.
A similar trend was found and most of the students who enrolled in anatomy or other human body system classes were primarily female.
According to Dr. Clifford, “the anatomy or human body systems courses often have more female students,” calling for BHS science teachers to take action.
“We have also been trying to encourage male students to take this course. As far as theorized reasons go, I think a lot is perception of the subjects or the courses. We have tried to change how we promote the courses to see if we can improve the balance,” she added.
Intrigued by this unavoidable and distinct preference over courses, senior anatomy student Alia Omar explained her reasoning for choosing anatomy over the engineering course.
“Intially, I was interested in taking both courses because I do have a genuine interest in STEM and physics. However, I chose anatomy because it aligned better with the specific career-path I have in mind, which requires more knowledge about biology and the human body systems.”
When asked for her opinion on what could lead to such a clear divide amongst female and male peers in the selection of STEM courses, Alia elaborated on her theory of what influences student selection of courses.
“Nursing has become an increasingly popular career path to follow for many women, including my own mother. Though the reputation of nursing is very much geared towards the female species due to historical images and impressions from events like female nurses serving in World War II. I think a lot of guys choose not to take anatomy or a human body systems course simply because they don’t want to be associated with a “female course”, but frankly I think it simmers down to two reasons: they generally just want to be with their friends, which most happen to be in engineering, and/or they want a career more inclined to engineering and physics if they do not have an interest in nursing, because there are many ‘murses’ entering the field and that shouldn’t discourage any guys from wanting to become a nurse.”
With nursing on the rise as one of the most competitive and popular career paths and college programs to enter, as well as the rise of “mursing”—male nursing, more BHS make students should consider stepping out of the general consensus and enrich their education with courses that will better fit their career paths and genuine interests, rather than basing their selection merely on the image of a course and if whether not their friends are taking the course.
Alia continued, “I think if there was more open discussion about nursing, engineering, and other STEM aligned career paths regarding the exact descriptions of the jobs, then more students would be open minded to taking courses they may have even considered. Nursing can be for guys and for girls— it focuses on helping protect and mending the wounded and hurt. It’s a difficult, but noble job for anyone to take on, girl or not.”
