Parental encouragement and marks obtained in the qualifying examination are the deciding factors for an entry into engineering courses.

Career choices and career decisions are influenced by the decisions about marriage, parenthood, female-male responsibilities in home making, social norms and expected sex roles. Women are not free to explore their interests and make choices. In most of the Indian families, even today, girls are not taken seriously when it is a matter of career and it is considered to be of secondary importance.

Marriage is still, the principal determinant of women's social position. Sex role stereotyping influences women's lives from birth and it s a powerful influence in schools. This results in restrictions upon the freedom of occupational choice and career development of girls.

Currently the factors due to which girls take to engineering and technology are the social status and prestige, which goes with the profession and economic independence it would bring to the family. This finding of muthu chidambaram (1990) is supported by the findings of Horst (1981) who listed the factors of careers choice in order of importance.

The chance to earn good money, attaining social status and prestige, to look forward to a stable secure future and to use one's special abilities were cited as important reasons for choosing engineering studies.

Another common finding is that the role model of women who choose engineering was mostly the father and the USA most of the women engineers themselves, according to Horst (1981).

In India as well as USA and UK the government are following an aggressive policy to attract more women into non-traditional jobs in engineering sciences. This is also one of the main reasons, which encourage women to choose engineering.