The sun streams in through the windows of the Engineering Student Centre on a warm March day, illuminating Karisma Jutla, the heart-shaped red sunglasses on top of her head and her red — the (in)famous engineering varsity jacket — which sits over her chair, covered in just about every patch you can get.
If she were to put it on, her 'chief' patch, which is worn by the current EUS president, would lay over her heart.
Backlit by the sun, the writing on her windows from volunteers who’ve visited her office lights up like neon lights. The walls are decorated by pink butterflies and posters, and a small sparkly pink cowboy hat sits in the corner of her office in front of stacks of red solo cups.
“It didn’t always look like this,” Jutla laughs.
Despite spending her entire degree involved in all things EUS from red sales to reopening the low-cost EUS food outlet, The Eatery, Jutla didn’t initially want to become an engineer.
“I went through all of high school wanting to actually be a physicist because I really liked physics. I really liked space,” said Jutla, a sixth-year materials engineering student with a specialization in aerospace engineering.
“Right before the [UBC] application was due, I realized I didn't want to be a professor, and that was kind of the only real option for physics.”
Her interest in engineering sparked while attending UBC engineering outreach programs.
Standing in a room filled with girls, PVC pipe and hot glue guns, Jutla was tasked with making a craft that keeps an egg from breaking when it's dropped from up high.
“I really liked the fact that I was working with other people, especially with other girls,” said Jutla.
“I felt really lucky that they were doing that much outreach for us. I, again, probably wouldn’t have been an engineer if they didn't because I just wouldn't even thought of it as an option.”
According to a 2019 Statistics Canada report, women in engineering made up 24 per cent of all engineering student nationwide.
In 2015, the Faculty of Applied Science committed to increase female enrolment to 50 per cent by 2020. But current enrolment remains under the faculty’s 2020 goal with around 34.5 per cent of engineering undergraduate students identifying as women in 2023.
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Jutla said she was often the only girl in her physics classes in high school, but it wasn't until her first year that she realized the impact of that gender imbalance.
“I think that's when I was more like, ‘Oh, I'm a girl and I'm treated differently because I'm a girl,’” said Jutla.
But Jutla is trying to change this.
She follows a history of women presidents — in the past 10 years, most EUS presidents have been women — but she’s the first Indian person to be at the helm of the student society.
According to Statistics Canada data from 2022, around 30 per cent of graduates who earned a bachelor’s degree from a Canadian institution from 2014 to 2017 were members of a visible minority group. And the Pew Research Centre reported, in 2021, that white people make up 71 per cent of employed engineers and architects in the US.
Jutla said she’s been ushered into the EUS by other women executives before she got involved.
Starting off as a Spirit Rep, Jutla refereed EUS intramurals, set up fences for parties and was always around if someone needed a helping hand.
Later that year, while studying for finals in the Engineering Student Centre, one of the women executives told her they created a new role — and that she’d be perfect for it.
“I don't know how true that was, but it was a great recruitment tool because I was like, ‘Oh my god! A VP wants me.’”
This led to Jutla working as the EUS’s events and social media manager. And later that year, the same executive that told her about that new role encouraged her to run for the EUS executive.
Jutla worked as the EUS VP communications during the 2020/21 school year and came back as the VP finance in 2022/23 after working in red sales while on a co-op term.
And then, after two years on the EUS executive (and after being part of the team that won AMS Constituency of the Year), Jutla decided she was ready to become president.
“I feel like after all that time you have the knowledge and the ability,” said Jutla. “You kind of look around, and you want to be able to help people who were in the spot you were in.”
But being supported and mentored by women in engineering hasn’t always been easy.
“There’s talks I had as I became an executive ... like, ‘Okay, there's like a slightly different way you're gonna carry yourself to be a woman who's in charge,’” said Jutla.
The EUS has become Jutla’s family on campus, and she emphasized how special UBC’s engineering community is.
“I think the engineering spirit is something that exists very uniquely on this campus,” said Jutla. “I've had the opportunity to meet the presidents of almost every other engineering school in Canada and [they say] 'The shit you guys do at UBC is like insane, like what's going on?'"
The mentorship that gave Jutla the push to become an EUS executive, didn’t just end at leadership but extended into academics as well.
“I think if I wasn't in the EUS in first and second year, I would probably not pass my classes,” said Jutla. “Having upper years to help me with my homework and … be like, ‘Hey, yeah, you got a 40 on that midterm. Everyone got 40 on that midterm, like calm down, it's gonna be okay.’ And I just wanna be able to provide that for as many first years as possible.”
Jutla has mentored others as she once was.
"I think there’s a lot of value in someone you look up to telling you they think you’ll be good for the role, and that’s they believe in it," said Jutla. "It’s gotten me to take steps in the EUS I may have not had the confidence to do."
Community is important for Jutla, and she said she’s most proud of honouring women in engineering at the 2023 14 Not Forgotten ceremony.
On December 6, 1989, a man entered an engineering classroom at École Polytechnique and killed 14 women in an act of gender-based violence. This remains the second largest mass shooting in Canadian history.
December 6 has since been declared by Canada as the National Day of Remembrance and Action of Violence Against Women in 1991.
Jutla said the ceremony used to be small, but now has grown in past years. It’s now a larger ceremony about “about the experience of being a woman in engineering.” This year’s speakers were from the EUS, SVPRO and other groups. UBC President Benoit-Antoine Bacon also spoke.
“I felt like we were really, truly honouring those women,” said Jutla.
Jutla can see graduation on the horizon as her time in the EUS comes to a close.
“I'm excited to be an engineer, honestly. I think it's going to be a totally new challenge,” said Jutla. “I'm really excited to go out there and meet older women in the industry and make those relationships, find mentors.”
And though her time at UBC is coming to an end, Jutla remembers her first year Imagine Day like it was yesterday.
Then-EUS President Kate Burnham was giving a speech to first-year engineering students.
“I'm a sixth-year geological engineer, and you're all gonna think that's crazy, but you won't in six years,” said Burnham according to Jutla.
At the time, Jutla thought she’d finish her degree in four years, something she now laughs about — “the average engineering student does not take four years. It's a six year degree, usually five and a half.”
But seeing Burnham and other EUS executives commit so hard to being engineers, Jutla knew she made the right decision going into engineering.
“I'd grown up with all these stories about engineers hanging cars off of bridges,” said Jutla.
“I remember just showing up and seeing them all in their matching coveralls and people just running around covered with cairns all over their face and so excited," said Jutla. "And I was like, ‘Wow, like the vibes are here.’”
And now, Jutla, like Burnham, is in her sixth-year and is the EUS president — something Jutla didn’t think she would ever do as a first-year.
“It's a fun full circle moment.”
