BUFFALO, N.Y. — Figuring out what career path to choose can be hard without the right guidance.

“When I was in high school if you were good in math and science, my guidance counselor liked to tell you if you were a woman, to become a pharmacist, that was the path for you,” said Michelle Bodewes, a senior transportation engineer for LaBella. 

Of the overall percentage of women employed with bachelor's degrees in 2021, less than 8% of women worked in science and engineering occupations, according to the Society of Women Engineers.  

That's making guidance a huge part of boosting women into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

“I spend a lot of my time, when I mentor young engineers that same way, to not be intimidated, to take those chances, take advantage of the opportunities that are given to you,” said Bodewes.

For women like Bodewes, figuring out her path into the field meant following her heart.

“For my career path, I generally just followed and took the classes in college that interested me. And that landed me in civil engineering,“ she said. “I basically found it because I took the program of all the different classes that were offered and started circling the ones that I was interested in. And I was like, 'Wow, I guess I should be a civil engineer because those were all the classes that interested me.”

It's a field she considered to have less of a gender gap than some of the other engineering paths.

“Civil engineering itself has a lot of other offshoots, sciences like geology and environmental aspects that also tend to interest women.”

It's making the road less traveled, one she’s glad she chose.

“I still enjoy my job, I still like going there every day,” she said. “I think there’s a lot more support nowadays and a lot more emphasis on the different career paths and the different opportunities that you have in science and engineering.”