A New Engineer in the Family

The new graduate.

The new graduate with proud parents.

Family members during the long wait at the stadium.

Graduating students on the stadium floor.

Celebration with balloons at the end of the ceremony.

Post graduation pizza dinner with friend Grey, his mother Barbara, and step-father Mike

December 1997.  Sinan with some of the model cars in his collection.

Sinan with his Acura Integra in 2004.

Sinan and Grey with their tandem bike in Atlanta.

Sinan with his scooter in Atlanta.

May 8^th, 2011 was mother’s day.  For Semahat, it was doubly special, because it also turned out to be Sinan’s graduation day from Georgia Institute of Technology.  What better mother’s day gift for an engineer mother than seeing her son graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering?  We flew to Atlanta the day before, and joined Sinan and his three graduating housemates Grey, Dan, and Clayton, along with their parents and siblings for a pre-graduation dinner at the roof-top restaurant of their favorite Five Seasons brewery.  The next morning, mother’s day, we arrived at the Georgia Dome, home of the Atlanta Falcons football team, an hour early to make sure we had good seats for the ceremony, which was to start at noon.  The stadium started filling up with family members of the graduating students.   The procession of the graduating class walked in at noon and took their seats on the main floor, with the band playing “pomp and circumstance”.  We realized that it will be a long commencement exercise, starting with the address by the featured speaker, followed by each of the 2600 graduating masters and bachelors candidates walking up to the podium to receive their degrees.  We checked the program.  Mechanical engineering was listed at the very end.

As we sat there listening, watching, and waiting for Sinan’s name to be called, I started reflecting on this entire experience of two working immigrant professionals bringing up two children with no immediate family within thousands of miles. It was very hard work, but fortunately for us, they have both grown up to be well adjusted individuals and solid citizens with social consciousness.  We are proud of both of them.  Meanwhile, the commencement program proceeded at its slow pace.  The featured speaker was the CEO of Wal-Mart Corporation, a Georgia Tech alumnus.  He talked about his humble beginnings, how he had to hold two jobs while working on his engineering degree at Georgia Tech, how important education is to a person’s overall development and career success, how important it is to follow one’s passion and dreams.  I started thinking about Sinan’s passions.

He was always passionate about cars.  In fact, the first word out of his mouth was “car-car”, not once but twice for emphasis.  Right after the dinosaur phase in his early childhood, he started learning the names and makes of cars he saw on the road, especially sports cars.  He started collecting model sports cars, and drawing their pictures.  By middle school, he had become a fan of racing cars.  He wrote a letter to McLaren Company in England, telling them how much he admired their cars, and how he was going to ask his father to buy one of their cars.  They in return sent him a brochure with performance details and picture postcards of their cars.  He was very happy.  His favorite computer game was “Need for Speed”, from which he learned the details of the tracks of all the major races in the world.  His room was filled with model cars and posters of sports cars.  Sinan got his first real car in 2004, when he turned sixteen, and was eligible to get a driver’s license.  It was a 1995 Acura Integra Special Edition, with 68,000 miles on it.  He had been working during the summer months since he was fourteen, so he had money to maintain the car, although our insurance rate doubled as soon as we added a teenage driver.  Acura was a sports car, but it was not sporty enough for Sinan.  So he started working on it immediately.  He lowered the chassis, changed the exhaust to give it a sportier growl, and changed the tires, headlights, and the sound system, all by himself, working in our garage.  Naturally, he decided that he wants to be a mechanical engineer, so he can design high performance cars.

When the time came to send out college applications, he did not want to apply to any Ivy League college, because according to him, they were too snobbish.  He applied to only four schools, with Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta at the top of his list.  When the acceptance letter came from Georgia Tech., he was happy.  We were happy too, because the school was ranked fourth in the country in mechanical engineering by US News and World Report, and was somewhat cheaper than Ivy League schools.  Only negative was the 700 mile distance from Pittsburgh.

And so began Sinan’s pursuit of a degree in mechanical engineering, which is culminating today with this commencement exercise.  Three hours had passed since we took our seats inside the Georgia Dome.  All the speech making is done.  Now, each of the 2600 students was being asked to step up to the podium to receive their certificates one by one as their names were being called.  There would be at least an hour more before Sinan’s name was called.

Sinan’s enthusiasm for cars and mechanical engineering hit a bump on the road during his time at Georgia Tech.  During his sophomore year, he joined the co-op program, where students spend alternate semesters working full time in one of the engineering companies chosen by the university.  He started working for a large engineering design firm based in Atlanta.  Through this exposure, he saw firsthand how mechanical engineers work, and apparently was not too thrilled by this experience.  He was also getting more and more interested in the environment, sustainability, energy conservation and green technology, which did not quite match with his love of fast cars.  He joined a campus organization called “Environmental Alliance”, which was working with the campus authorities to find ways to reduce the carbon footprint of the campus, and eventually became the president of the organization.  He sold his Acura and bought a bicycle and a scooter instead, much to the dismay of his mother, who was now constantly worrying about his safety on Atlanta streets.  He and his friend Grey used their engineering skills to build a tandem bike, using parts from two separate bicycles.  Sinan’s semester abroad in France exposed him to several European cities.  Compared to the suburban sprawl in America, those cities seemed much more environmentally sustainable to him, with their extensive and efficient intercity and intra-city public transportation systems.  He took a couple of courses on city planning.  In his final year of undergraduate studies, he announced to us that he was no longer interested in working as a mechanical engineer.  He wanted to get a Master’s degree in City Planning, and build a career in that field.  So, he took the GRE, started sending his applications, and was accepted in the master’s program in the department of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech.

We had been sitting in the stadium for almost five hours now.  Finally, Sinan’s name was called; I got my camera ready, and took a picture of him walking to the podium.  The ceremony was over.  The newly minted graduates walked out of the building in a procession.  Now it was the parents’ turn to find them in that large crowd and congratulate them.  I wondered, “How did people ever find each other before the age of cell phones?”  We gathered outside in the bright sunshine, took a few pictures, and then headed out to dinner.  Everyone was hungry after that long ceremony.  The next day, Semahat and I flew back to Pittsburgh.  Sinan stayed behind.  He had found a summer job at the “Enterprise and Innovation Institute” of Georgia Tech., the same institute where he will work as a graduate research assistant during his post-graduate studies in the department of City and Regional Planning, specializing in transportation planning and economic development.  He is following his passion, just like his sister did before him.  All we can do is wish them success and happiness.