NEW IBERIA, La. (AP) — In her pink-and-grey sweatshirt and fuzzy boots, Courtney Long picks a drill bit off a table in her classroom at South Louisiana Community College's campus in New Iberia.

She points out how it's much heavier than it looks and much smaller than some bits found on rigs.

Long, 25, recently visited a rig in Morgan City with her classmates. She is one of four women in SLCC's oil and gas production technology program this semester.

Another woman completed the one-year program last summer, earning a technical diploma in a traditionally male-dominated industry.

Women make up abo...