Although women fill about half of America’s jobs, they represent nearly one quarter of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics jobs; minorities accounting for an even less percentage.  This has consistently been the case for decades even though women and minority women college degree attainment rates have increased by 49% in 2009.  The percent of women with a doctorate working in STEM jobs is still only about half of that of men with a doctorate.  Even as women obtain these valuable occupations, they are still compensated for much less than men: For every dollar a man makes in STEM, a woman will earn only 86 cents.

By 2018, 2.7 million new jobs will be available in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields.  STEM fields are one of the fastest growing and highest paid fields though women, specifically minority women are continuously underrepresented (in 2010, women of color represented only 10% of science and engineering jobs).  Our mission is to build awareness about the lack of minority women in STEM fields, eliminate opportunities barriers, foster learning and academic success, and cultivate leadership by bringing together the top leaders of today with the striving leaders of tomorrow.

E^3: Empowering, Encouraging, Eliminating Barriers is a one-on-one mentoring group for motivated, underprivileged, and/or disadvantaged female students in grades 9-12. We are a student run organization consisting of college mentors and high school aged mentees. There will be at least one meeting every month on Saturdays from March to May from 4 pm-6 pm at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center in Cambridge, MA.