Are your relatives engineers or scientists

  • Thread starter Jurrasic
  • Start date
In summary: My mom is a registered dietitian.In summary, it is common for an engineering or science student to also have other relatives in their family who are also engineers or scientists. Some of these relatives are scientists, while others are engineers. It is also common for these relatives to have been tradesmen.
  • #1
Jurrasic
98
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How typical is it that an engineering or science student also has other relatives in their family who are also engineers or scientists ?

It it common that the student would have a parent who doesn't give a rat about anything scientific or engineering like? Or is this sort of impossible?
 
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  • #2
My father is a minister. My siblings are doctors. I'm the only engineer.

I was better in math and science than my siblings :rolleyes:
 
  • #3
My dad was an chemical engineer.

Two of my sisters were programmers, but married engineers (chemical and mechanical).

A third sister was a biologist that became a college professor, but she married a geologist.

I dated a chemical engineer.
 
  • #4
My dad is a Civil Engineer (step-dad too, guess my mom has a thing for them). On my dad's side of the family, there are loads of scientists and engineers.

Two of my brothers are engineers (one electronics, the other maritime) and one is a programmer.

I'm the first female in my family in the STEM fields - most before me didn't have the opportunities I had.
 
  • #5
My younger cousin and I are the first two of our extended family (and the only ones in our immediate families) to attend college. He is a project leader for Lockheed Martin and headed up their team on the recent HST upgrade mission, though he did a long stint working for GE on defense contracts. I have worked as a soils scientist and a process chemist in a pulp mill though I don't have an engineering degree in either - just an aptitude for and love of lab work. Now in forced retirement due to disability, I am free to pursue my avocation - observational astronomy relating to galactic interactions.
 
  • #6
Rough genealogy:

Dad's Side: Mostly musicians(my greatgrandfather and my grandfather were coposes) and mechanical engineers, however, my OTHER great grandfather was a mathematician who worked under Landau and Hilbert.

Mom's side: Farmers and Buddhist monks.
 
  • #7
Dad's side: Granddad was an engineer with a degree in engineering physics, Grandma was a mathematician, dad is a physician with most of an engineer degree his brother got a business masters.

Mom's side: Granddad was an architect, grandma was a Cantor+Schoolteacher, mother is designer. She got no siblings.

2 of my male cousins are engineers, my female cousin is studying to be a teacher, my oldest sibling is an engineer+business double master.

Myself I am not that ambitious so I am currently working on a pure maths + theoretical physics double masters, intending to take a phd afterwards.

If you wonder, where I live masters is the normal degree to take, it is quite uncommon to just take a bachelor in these fields.
 
  • #8
My dad was an Electrical Engineer. My mother worked for Dr Michael Debakey as a nutritionist for his experimental patients at Baylor. Her father was an architect. One uncle was a dentist, my cousin is an MD. One of my sisters is a psychologist, the other is a pharmacist.
 
  • #9
I'm a software engineer, but my degree is in Mathematics. My brother is an electronics engineer, and a cousin is a engineer in power equipment. My brother definitely influenced me. When I started university my major was electronics engineering. I switched to math because I was having trouble with the physics.
 
  • #10
Evo said:
My mother worked for Dr Michael Debakey as a nutritionist for his experimental patients at Baylor.
That's an interesting coincidence. My mom took care of many of Debakey's patients at Methodist Hospital.
 
  • #11
As far (back) as I know:

The males on both sides of my family were/are all tradesmen. The females were/are all teachers [K-12 (mostly kindergarten)]. All chose to follow in the footsteps of their same sex parent.
 
  • #12
Going back, I came from a long line of loggers, farmers, and poachers (all). When the great depression hit, some managed to stay put, and others moved to the river-towns to take whatever jobs there were, so most ended up doing mill-work or some kind or other. Most of the females did not work out of the home, and the large sizes of French-Canadian families gave them plenty to do at home, anyway, especially if they were expected to garden, collect fruits and berries in season, freeze and can food, etc.
 
  • #13
Astronuc said:
That's an interesting coincidence. My mom took care of many of Debakey's patients at Methodist Hospital.
Really? My mother worked for him around 1973? Just a guess based on how old my youngest sister was at the time. She was a toddler.
 
  • #14
Evo said:
Really? My mother worked for him around 1973? Just a guess based on how old my youngest sister was at the time. She was a toddler.
My mom worked at MH from about 1971 to some time in the late 90's.
 
  • #15
My dad is a cost manager for an HVAC company, my mom is a college administrator.
Both of their moms (my grandmas) worked at a fishing lure company painting jigs. My dads dad was a police chief and a logger and a drywall hanger and a etc. etc! I think he has had 12 jobs throughout his life and finished up with being the police chief.
My great grandpa on my grandpas side held the last commercial fisherman license in Minnesota.
My grandmas grandma was the daughter of Count Montalto of Venice and was disenherited for marrying a blacksmith. This is when they moved to the US.
 
  • #16
Oh a nice family tree! :biggrin:
 
  • #17
I inadvertently picked up programming from my mom, psychology from my dad.

On my mom's side, my grandmother is a structural (civil) engineer and taught math at a university in Azerbaijan (where they're from). She wanted to collect degrees, but my grandfather didn't want her to be that much more educated than him. My grandfather owned a car manufacturing plant over there, drove a taxi when they got stateside. My mom's got a degree in accounting, works as a programmer, and wanted to be a history major.

On my dad's side, my grandfather was in construction (foreman and the like), my grandma did a brief stint as a phlebotomist, and I don't know what they did back in Ukraine (probably factory owner or sales). My dad's a college drop out, but now he works in psychology/special ed.

My twin brother's a political science major/wannabee lawyer, which I think is a cute gender reversal, but I'm convinced he'd make a good engineer.
 
  • #18
Mom (Business major, college dropout who works in a NGO)

Mom's side: grandfather (Navy Sailor, not US Navy), and grandmother (Finance, college drop out), uncle (Mechanical Engineer)

Dad (Civil Engineer, retired at 55)

Dad's side: grandfather (Dentist), grandmother (socialite, you know model, fashion, ...), uncle (Lawyer), aunt (Business, college dropout).

My sister is an architect who only had 1 semester left to graduate, but she decided to change major to Business and went to the US for it.

I'm the only one besides my Dad with a Master degree, but I'll be the only one of the family with a Master in Science degree in Civil Engineering. However, my family is full of entrepreneurs. My dad, my lawyer uncle, my mechanical engineer uncle, my grandfather's brother have owned and ran some of the most successful businesses in my country. The most successful ran by my grandfather's brother, and a runner-up will be my Dad.
 
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  • #19
Going even farther back in my family, the progenitor for my father's mother's family was a Hessian officer (German mercenary) that fought for England in the Rev War, and chose to accept land and a grub-stake in Prince Edward Island instead of transport back to Germany and a bag of gold. On my father's father's side, his progenitors were Irish immigrants (farmers) and his mother's family were Irish immigrants (fishermen), both of which clans came to Maine during the potato famine in the mid-1800s.

There are some pretty pricey properties named for my family, although they were very poor hardscrabble places back in the day. Orr's Island and Bailey's Island (both in Harpswell, ME) were loaded with poor fishing villages long before the islands became popular as summer-homes from the wealthy people "from away". Want to buy a place there now? You might have to buy it from a Wall Street investment banker.
 
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  • #20
I'm sure my ancestors on my dad's side were all highwaymen & cutpurses. :biggrin: The only exception being his father's cousin.
 
  • #21
My dad was an engineer on the Mercury and Gemini projects, and my great, great, great uncle was hanged for being a horse thief.
 
  • #22
1. My dad is a mechanical engineer
2. My mom has a chem eng. degree but is not an engineer
3. One grandfather has a physics Ph. D. and is currently a professor.
4. Other grandfather has an eng degree.
5. I have 5 aunts and uncles with physics or engineering degrees. Also one is currently a professor of applied mathematics.

I had a roommate who was the first in his family to go to college. Whenever I was having trouble with a problem he would poke fun at me: "comon man, you come from a long line of scholars!"
 
  • #23
Evo said:
I'm sure my ancestors on my dad's side were all highwaymen & cutpurses. :biggrin: The only exception being his father's cousin.
My sister's deceased husband's male progenitors were highwaymen. There is a very long stretch between Quebec City and Bingham, Maine where there were few secure, reliable stops on the Old Canada Road. If your stage-coach suffered mechanical problems, you lost more than a single horse, etc, etc, you would be prey.
 
  • #24
Several of my ancestors were engineers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of them was a Civil Engineer who oversaw irrigation projects in west Texas. This stuff is in my blood.
 
  • #25
My biological dad is a musician. My mom is a housewife (but she did win a science fair as a youngster and got to have lunch with Werner Von Braun as part of the prize). I have a cousin who was an astronaut.

My family tree also seems to have a good number of cattle rustlers.
 
  • #26
My parents were the first one to get into college. Looks like both me and my sister will be the first ones to go beyond undergrad. I will be the first engineer in my whole family.
 
  • #27
My family has a long line of woodworkers and farmers from rural Spain, I have a few family members who became nurses and one great-uncle who became a doctor with his own practice. My parents are both biologists with undergrad degrees (my father specifically went into immunohistochemistry), and my mother prefers to work in reproductive medicine. I'm the first member of my family who has any desire to get a degree in physics, let alone a graduate degree in the subject.
 
  • #28
My father is (was, he left the profession) a civil engineer.
My mother's side of the family is, well, un-notable.
 
  • #29
My parents are both pharmacists and business owners. I have two sisters, both did double masters in business administration and mathematics. I have an uncle who is a web designer, and his wife is a web designer as well, I have another uncle who was originally a programmer, but later became a C.F.A, and his wife is a lawyer. I have another uncle who is a mechanical/environmental engineer and his wife is a biochemist.

I never really interacted much with anyone other than my parents and sisters, and within my direct family, if anything, I was urged to go into business. I came to my own conclusion from when I was just around 8 years old or so that I would become a physicist one day, a decade has passed and I stand by my decision. Regardless of whether my family was full of physicists/engineers, or people in vastly different careers, I think physics is in my genes, and thus no environmental stimuli would be sufficient to change my career path.
 
  • #30
Cyclovenom said:
My sister is an architect who only had 1 semester left to graduate, but she decided to change major to Business and went to the US for it.

wow that's a pretty heavy fail right there.. no offence
 
  • #31
My father has a 7th grade education, my mother has a 10th grade education. Nobody in my immediate or moderately extended family has a degree. Maybe I have fourth-cousins twice-removed with a degree, but I don't know of any.
 
  • #32
My mom is an accountant for a fashion school, and my dad works in Real Estate.
Not many scientists in my family, although some of my female cousins are pharmacists, doctors, etc.
 
  • #33
Dad- agricultural statistician
brother- software engineer
brother- biologist
me- physicist
brother- physicist

uncle- physicist

I have 26 uncles and aunts, and about 36 cousins. As far as I know, only the above 6 have science, engineering or math degrees.

I'm the son of a son of a farmer, but my grandfather (the farmer) was the first person in the county to have electric lights in his house. He installed batteries and DC lamps to see in the dark.
 
  • #34
Dad - Sales engineer
Mom - Homemaking engineer
Brother - Electronics engineer
Sister - Homemaking engineer
Another sister - social work engineer
Cousin - Mechanical engineer
Nephew - History engineer
Daughter - bump on a log engineer
Me - Software engineer
 
  • #35
One of my ancestors on my mom's side (of kelso or calchou) died fighting with william wallace, another was known as "little john" (nayler) in robin hood's band, others included the Clanton family murdered by the Earps at the Ok corral and vilified in film history. On my dad's side, Jesse Tapp, former chairman of Bank of America was my cousin. My dad ran away from home at age 16 and joined the circus, later the railroad, was a rough and tumble fighter, and self taught lawyer. I left a job as a lugger at the south boston meat market to teach math in washington state. Put on notice to get a phd or lose my job, i did both. When I returned to southie for a visit after 5 years, one of my lugging friends saw me and asked predictably: "you look kind of pale, where you been, prison? "

but my brother Charlie is an engineer, (and formerly Bill Monroe's fiddler). But in my dreams I grew up in a scientific family in Europe surrounded by scholars.
 

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