Having grown up with both parents holding engineering degrees and encouraging her love of science and maths, Isabella Juriya knew what she wanted to study at uni from an early age.
But the 17-year-old had a moment of doubt when she looked around at all the male faces on her first day at Sydney University.
"At orientation for my engineering course, my little group had 20 people and three were girls," Ms Juriya said.
"It was disheartening at first because you look around the room and start to think, 'I don't know if I'm supposed to be here'.
"My mum did tell me she was one of very few girls but I'd thought, it's 2017, it'll be a bit more even."
Despite a widespread push for more women to enter science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) fields, offers to female students for these courses have remained unchanged over at least five years, admissions data for NSW and ACT institutions provided by the Universities Admissions Centre shows.
About 2 per cent of the 51,000 women who applied for an undergraduate course starting this semester received an offer for courses in the engineering and related technologies field, compared to 12 per cent of 38,000 new male students.
About 1 per cent of female students applied for and received an offer for information technology courses, compared to 7 per cent of male students.
The percentage of female students offered engineering or IT courses has remained unchanged since at least 2012, while male participation in IT has risen slightly from 6 per cent of students in 2012 to 7 per cent in 2017. The proportion of men studying engineering has dropped from 14 per cent to 12 per cent over the same period.
The University of Sydney's Deputy Vice-Chancellor Tyrone Carlin said the shortage of female students in STEM degrees can be linked to an increasingly "alarming" trend of women choosing not to study high-level mathematics in the HSC.
The university announced last year that it will become the first in NSW to require that year 12 students complete at least two-unit mathematics to gain entry to 62 courses across a range of fields, including STEM, from 2019.
"[It's] the most important thing the University of Sydney has done in recent years to try to redress the gender imbalance in STEM fields at a macro level," Professor Carlin said.
"[We're] sending a signal to the education community that it is vital that we equip a greater proportion of our students with these skills."
Nearly half of all new female undergraduates received offers in health or society and culture fields, where they make up the majority.
About 22 per cent of offers to women were in the health field, compared to 12 per cent of offers to men, and 26 per cent of offers to female students were for society and culture courses, compared to 18 per cent for males, with very little change in these fields over the past five years.
Natural and physical sciences has seen the biggest change in gender balance, and hit parity this year after female participation rose to 12 per cent of all students, up from 10 per cent in 2012.
Ms Juriya, who is doing a combined engineering and commerce degree, said a more even gender split in the commerce field made the subject a bit easier.
About 13 per cent of female students were offered places in the management and commerce field this semester, compared to 20 per cent of male students.
"I don't feel as out of place," Ms Juriya said.
"I think engineering will get easier, but it is nice to have other women to support each other.
"But that's also how I know I should be in this field, because it needs more women."
