Some of the most popular courses at Victorian universities are still largely divided down traditional gender lines, despite work to encourage students to study non-traditional fields.

Female university students are flocking to health and education courses but the numbers for engineering remain flat, analysis of enrolment data shows.

University engineering courses have actually become more male-dominated over the past decade, as enrolments from predominantly male international students surge.

In 2001, 2665 local female students were enrolled in engineering. The figure for 2016 was 2523.

In 2001, local female students made up about one in seven engineering enrolments in Victoria. Now they make up about one in 13. Since 2015, they have also been outnumbered by female international students.

Melbourne University dean of engineering Iven​ Mareels  said some international female students came from cultures in which engineering was not as male-dominated. 

Professor Mareels said universities and industry organisations were working hard to encourage women to study engineering to show that "engineering is indeed family friendly and gender neutral and that women can succeed in engineering".  

Grattan Institute higher education program director Andrew Norton said the figures showed attempts to improve gender ratios in male-dominated science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects were not working. 

"In some fields, the old gender stereotypes are still powerful," he said. "Few men want to be nurses; few women want to be engineers."

He said engineering was a blokey occupation and that could deter some women from considering a career in the field. 

Student Tenisha Fernando is four years into her five-year bachelor of mechatronics/international business double degree at RMIT University, and says there are currently no more than four women in her engineering class of 50.

"It is most definitely male-dominated," she said.

"In my first year we were put into groups for a project and the ratio was one girl for every five boys, and that's how teams were set up. It didn't really matter to me if I was the girl in the group, and it was just a matter of stepping up and taking charge."

She says a year nine systems technology subject sparked her interest in the field, and she chose all her VCE subjects with the aim of studying engineering at university. Ms Fernando said there was never a perception that STEM subjects were male-only among her peers as she attended a single-sex school.

With the finish line in sight for her double degree, she hopes to pursue a career in robotics: "I like the automation side of things – taking a menial task and working out how to automate it."

Ms Fernando is one of 2523 female domestic students enrolled in an engineering course at a Victorian tertiary institution. By comparison, there are 30,985 in health (predominantly nursing) courses, where domestic female students make up 62 per cent of enrolments.

Mr Norton said one reason for nursing's popularity was the fact the courses were relatively easy to get into, with a median ATAR in 2015 of 71.

Flexible working hours in many health occupations may explain some of the gender bias, he said.

But more males are enrolling in nursing, with the number in health courses more than doubling to 12,386 over the past decade.

Daniel Robertson is studying nursing at the Australian Catholic University's Melbourne campus, and says an interest in health cases and the social nature of the occupation were major drawcards for him.

"There's a stereotype that nurses are female, but with all the changes in the world, it's much more accepted that anyone can do any job," he says.

Mr Robertson says the strong employment prospects for graduate nurses also influenced his decision.

"People will always be sick and there will always be illnesses around – that will never change," he says.

Nursing at ACU is one of the most sought after courses among tertiary applicants, with 575 people this year putting it as their first preference.

However, about two thirds of first round offers for the course go to mature age students, which suggests the course may not necessarily be in high demand among year 12 leavers.

The most sought after undergraduate course is arts at Melbourne University, which 2470 people have put as their first preference. About 2000 of these applicants will secure an offer to study there next year. 

One of the hardest courses to get into is medicine at Monash. A total of 2113 people have made it their number one choice, but only about 120 will get a place. 

VCE students have until midday on Wednesday to change their undergraduate course preferences through VTAC. 

- The Age