Being in STEM means that you are studying either Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics. UCSB offers a wide range of STEM majors, including 5 engineering BS majors and over 80 science/mathematics majors within the College of Letters and Science!

Although STEM students encompass a broad range of majors, they often share some similar experiences. They find themselves juggling classes, labs, work, volunteering, extracurricular activities, and more. Such a rigorous schedule can lead students to sacrifice self-care and sleep, which often backfires, resulting in negative consequences for academic performance and personal health.

Check out the articles below to learn about the challenges STEM students face and how to draw on your strengths to tackle them!
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Running on the Wheel:

Rigors of Being a STEM Student

Being a STEM major means that you have a heavy workload (e.g., course content is tough and demanding, frequent labs/quizzes), there's little room in your course sequence (“the grid”) for stumbling (having to retake class) without having to take more time to graduate, and there's little time for other activities outside of academics to create life balance. How do you deal with all of these challenges and keep going even when things feel super tough? Check out this article to learn more about how to navigate the challenges of being in STEM and build up your strengths to clear difficult hurdles.

Social Culture in STEM:

So what did YOU get on the last exam?

As a STEM student, you may feel as though you are constantly competing with your peers. You tell your friend that you earned a high grade on your Chemistry midterm, but they earned just a few more points than you did. For many students, this social comparison turns into worries about not being smart enough, fears that everyone else knows what they’re doing except for you, and that you are not cut out for STEM, or even hopelessness about not being competitive enough for jobs.

There's even competition about sacrifice and suffering. That is, the social culture around STEM makes it seem like that in order to succeed, you must be sleep-deprived and solely dedicated to your studies without having any sort of downtime. However, this mentality perpetuates unhealthy habits that can negatively impact your academic performance and your well-being.

My parents want me to be a Doctor:

Family Pressures to Remain in STEM

As a STEM student, you may feel a lot of pressure from your family. This pressure may be the result of your family’s growing lineage of doctors/lawyers/engineers (and the presumption that you, too, will want to be one). It can also be a result of financial necessity, which requires you to succeed and earn money for your family, or simply because achievement has been highly rewarded in your family. Regardless of the cause, family pressures contribute to an already full list of college-related stressors and can result in anxiety, feelings of being overwhelmed, and, ultimately, poorer academic achievement. How do we navigate conversations with our families when we don’t want the major they’ve encouraged us to pursue, or when we fall short of their standard of success? Check out these articles to find out.

Women in STEM

If being a STEM student wasn’t tough enough, being a woman in STEM comes with its own set of challenges. Women in STEM often encounter biases that their male counterparts may not encounter, and therefore may face more obstacles on the way to getting their degrees. Learning how to best prepare for and respond to these unique challenges will help you keep the focus on getting your education and building your career. Check out this article to learn more about how to succeed as a woman in STEM.

Unique Challenges & Strengths of Women in STEM

Although in recent years there have been significant efforts to encourage women to study STEM fields and choose STEM career paths, women remain underrepresented in STEM overall. In fact, women made up 26% of US STEM employees in 2023 (according to STEM Women), which is just a 1% increase from the year 2000. Several factors have been suggested to account for these phenomena:
  • Having fewer women in classes or the workplace can feel isolating
  • Having fewer women peers creates pressure to prove your competence over male counterparts
  • Greater exclusion of women from opportunities to further career pursuits (e.g., lab positions, internships) and a lack of equity in pay are found as compared to their male counterparts
  • Fewer women as mentors means less representative role models for how to navigate success in STEM fields, with even greater challenges for women of color and women with other marginalized identities
  • Most schools and workplaces lack specific programming to help recognize and address how women may be marginalized within STEM
  • Tolerance of negative, insensitive, or disparaging comments and harassment of women within the STEM culture makes remaining in the field less desirable
Yet, despite these many challenges, many women harness the strengths that got them to pursue STEM in the first place--their keen interest in discovery, their intelligence, their strong work ethic, their persistence in the face of obstacles, and their knowledge that drawing on support from others can help them further achieve their goals--to forge a successful career in STEM. 

Creating Your Support Network
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One of the best ways to not feel so alone in your STEM pursuits is to create your community of support. This can mean seeking out a mentor in your field as well as developing a connection to an academic advisor. But another important way that women in STEM access support is to join campus orgs or other groups that are exclusively for women in STEM. These orgs address the challenges that women may face in STEM; they offer programming to help you better navigate your academic path, they introduce you to mentors in the field, and they provide a community of support for other women in STEM who are just like you. Check out some of the on-campus orgs below, as well as the next section on the Million Women Mentors, to connect to other women in STEM.
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Imposter Syndrome &

Knowing You Belong Here

As a STEM student, you may find yourself questioning whether you belong at UCSB and whether you can "make it". This feeling, known as imposter syndrome, can affect your self-esteem and leave you feeling isolated and alone. Check out this article for how to challenge these thoughts and own the fact that you do belong here.

Connect to your Department & Advising

Academic advisors in the College of Letters & Sciences and the College of Engineering are here to guide you in making your academic plan so that you can complete all of your requirements for graduation. They can help you navigate the process of selecting courses and connect you to campus resources that will help you do your best in these courses. If you are struggling, they can help you evaluate whether to make a change to your course load, choose a new academic path, or take time off to reboot and rebuild an academic plan that works best for you. Stop in to meet with an academic advisor and learn how they can help you reach your academic goals. And for more specific guidance within your major, visit your department's advising office. Links to both the college academic advising offices and department-specific offices are found below.