Many students who enrolled in classes have continued in technology and they form a core of female students who have had one or more cooperative education experiences which lead to an apprenticeship. Another benefit has been the prolonged contact of technology teachers with more female students. Their reports to me at the end of the program indicated that their teaching styles became much more congenial and that techniques recommended by Carol Brooks in particular had improved their teaching generally (5).

The ultimate goal of the program is for female students to experience a semester of cooperative education in an environment that is non-sexist, technically advanced, and demanding in such a way that problem solving becomes part of every working day. The students are challenged to assume positions which are not service-oriented. Business students are placed in computerized offices and technical students are placed where the latest equipment is available for teaching. Employers are urged to move students through a variety of skill areas rather than allow them to fill one job, which might aid the employer but which could become repetitive and mundane. Teachers visit the students once every two weeks to monitor progress and ensure that they are learning and earning credits, not just helping an employer reach a deadline.

Each year we co-host with our coterminous board and an organization called the K-W Women in Networking, a banquet for one hundred and fifty women who purchase dinner for themselves and an equal number of female students from selected local secondary schools. The keynote address is motivational and highlights aspects of women, work and success. Students are taught how networking functions and they are given practical advice about post-secondary education and careers. The all-important message - that women may make several career changes and undergo a series of retraining procedures in their working life - is better absorbed by students when it is delivered by successful women from outside their home or school environment.

Two innovative programs were initiated in September of 1989. One involved the local community college and local industries who employed a total of fourteen students (four girls) for a full semester. The students at the community college assisted instructors as work experience while participating in classes and working on projects in each of six different technologies (including civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and electronics). In this way they learned basic skills and acquired confidence in a wide variety of subjects while determining those which best suited their individual skills. Industry-based students were considered pre-apprenticeship in machining, tool and die, and pattern making.

Those capable of sustaining the level of work required were offered apprenticeships and their employers credited the students with the hours spent learning their trades during the semester. A co-operative education teacher and an English teacher went out to the college and the industry so that students stayed the full day at their placements and learned to identify strongly with their new environment:

This program permitted students with little or no prior technical experience to investigate and choose a technical career. The young women were able to risk a full semester in a small group and showed a great deal of promise in electronics and related fields. Two of them are currently pursuing education for non-traditional careers. One of the students, Carey Woodcock, said "It changed my view towards school. It gave me an opportunity to experience new things for a better paying career."

The second program is a cooperative education program at the University of Waterloo for students in their final year of secondary school (6). They serve as research aids for professors on projects which give them their first experiences in research while they acclimatize to the university environment. They receive secondary school credits in the discipline in which they are working and take their first university course for credit. Although this program is open to both young women and men, our prior workshops and shadowing programs netted more women - a majority in science and engineering. As the students progress on their projects, they consider research as a career possibility and feel more comfortable in a choice which may otherwise seem isolating and intimidating.