I can answer that last question... there were not many girls in engineering. There were a few (and they were cute and I worked with some getting their Masters) but the Arts and soft sciences were loaded with girls. That's why I got a BA rather than a BS. I still learned how to code, sat on engineering committees, participated in defenses, did Military funded research on embedded devices, etc., but I had fun with the opposite sex too. You need some balance in life.