Level of education of your parents

[chaetzli]

I was wondering how the family backgrounds of PolSci applicants look like. I noticed that some of the GradCafe users are talking about their parents working in academia. Is this the exception or standard?

Edited February 15, 2012 by swisschocolate

[Megan]

Anecdotally, I can say that in my polisci MA program I am the only person in my year with a parent who works in academia.

[chaetzli]

Anecdotally, I can say that in my polisci MA program I am the only person in my year with a parent who works in academia.

Thank you for this insight. Do you think that having a parent who works in academia helped you to pursue your own academic "career"? (With help I mean being able to attend better schools or getting to know the right people...)

[CafeAuLait12]

My parents are both surgeons. You didn't give options for other post-undergrad degrees.

[chaetzli]

My parents are both surgeons. You didn't give options for other post-undergrad degrees.

Right...sorry!! Thank you for this remark.

[Max Power]

my parents are both academics. if i dig into aunts, uncles and first cousins, i'll be the 9th phd in my family. this is not even close to normal.

[Megan]

Thank you for this insight. Do you think that having a parent who works in academia helped you to pursue your own academic "career"? (With help I mean being able to attend better schools or getting to know the right people...)

Definitely not, in my case. My Dad is in a very different field, at a not very well-ranked program, and got his PhD in the 70s from also not the greatest place on earth. There has certainly been no benefit of any kind for me in the way that you are talking about. Maybe this would be different if my Dad was in the same field as me, or was well-known, or taught at a really top-notch place like an Ivy. My dad knows some people who teach at really great places, maybe even places I might have applied to, but they would all be in a totally different field. I'm not sure it would help even if he was in my field unless he was super well-known and I was obviously his kid...I can't imagine he'd call in favors in an admit process or something...

That said, there are some nice things about being a faculty kid. Generally speaking, professors don't scare me just because they are professors. I've spent my entire life around professors. I've seen what they look like when they have barbecue sauce on their faces. I think this was a bigger help in undergrad than it will be in grad school. I never felt weird about going to office hours or asking for help, which I know lots of people did. I think by the time we head to grad school, though, most people are no longer as intimidated by professors anyway, at least not in the same way.

Seeing my dad work his way through his academic career makes me more certain that I am making a good choice. I have some clarity about the fact that academia is absolutely awful a lot of the time. I know what departmental politics look like, and the toll they take on stress levels/personal life. I have seen a lot of the crap and still want to do it.

Sometimes my dad can provide useful perspective. For example, last year I had to take an incomplete for medical reasons. My dad was the first one to suggest I do so (followed by my adviser and program director) while I was just trying to slog through, keep working even though I was miserably ill, etc. While any parent might suggest this, my dad is able to be like, "Don't be crazy. People take incompletes all the time. It's not a big thing. Relax. You won't not get into a PhD program because of this." So, in that way, he provides perspective that maybe a parent who wasn't an academic couldn't.

I guess I think it's like anything your parents do. It gives you a particular set of experiences and perspectives that shape the way you approach your future. It also probably depends on where they are academics, what they study, etc...

[Max Power]

I'll second a lot of what Megan said. I probably also had a few extra advantage. None of my family are in my field, but quite a few of them are well-known or working in Ivy league schools or the equivalent. Though these were most pronounced when I was applying to colleges.

For me, the biggest advantage (that I recently took advantage of) came in the form of knowing what I was getting into when I decided I wanted to get a phd. I had clarity about what it meant to be a professor, beyond just that I'd be spending professional my life teaching and/or researching. I know exactly how my parents, and everyone else in my family, live. When I started putting my application together, I had a lot of advice. In October, my dad let me know that prospective applicants were reaching out to him about his program. He shared a bunch of their emails with me to give me an idea of what types of emails to POIs were more and less likely to elicit a helpful response. There were countless other small reminders that I got from both parents throughout the process of putting everything together.

[Megan]

I should add, there are downsides. My dad does some work that is about kids, and he uses me as an example. I occassionally have people I've never met say things like, "Your dad was telling us the other day about that time you did (insert super embarassing thing that I did as a small child here)." or "Oh, you're the one that bed wetting story was about!" Thanks Dad.

Edited for my inability to use punctuation.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Megan

[CooCooCachoo]

My family has no background whatsoever in academia. My sister - the only one in my direct family to have completed some form of tertiary education (akin to a polytechnic, not at uni) - didn't even know what a PhD was.

[chaetzli]

Thank you (Megan and jsclar) very much for your posts. I am very grateful that you share your personal experience with us. It actually made me change my mind about how it must be if you are a child of a professor. I am the first one in my family who went to college and got a university degree. For all my life, I felt that I must work harder than the kids from privileged families. While someone always opened a door for these kids (they went to the best schools/universities, got the coolest internships without even applying, language study travels...), I had to build the doors myself in order to open them afterwards. This made me jealous and sometimes it still does. Applying for grad school makes me feel even worse as I realize that there is so much competition and some of the applicants even have parents working as professors at top universities (I tried to suppress this fact for a long time). How can you compete with these students?

I still think that pursuing an academic career is easier when your parents did the same but for other reasons that one may expect (you nicely described it above).

[balderdash]

Actual conversation with a parent:

"How long does it take?"

"The PhD? 5 years."

"So you just got your BA, that means next year you'll get the PhD, like four-and-one?"

"..."

[Megan]

I would like to add, friends in Europe have told me that nepotism is a lot more of a problem here. My experiences are in the US. It may be quite different from other countries. What you are describing, SwissChocolate, doesn't seem very true to me on the US side. Certainly, kids with money have it easier in certain ways (don't have to take out loans, can afford unpaid internships, don't have to work while going to school, etc.), but I don't think that parents who are academics gives any particularly notable advantages here. At least not as far as I can tell.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Megan

[Max Power]

Conversations with parents don't get any easier when you parents are professors. He're's a sample:

"How long do you think you'll take?"

"Well I've got 5 years of guaranteed funding..."

"You should probably aim for 3.5 to 4"

"..."

"I have all these students who start and then get distracted by other projects and don't finish. I don't want to see that happen to you."

"I haven't even started yet."

"It would really be better if you just got it done as quickly as possible"

"..."

Edited February 15, 2012 by jsclar

[chaetzli]

Conversations with parents don't get any easier when you parents are professors. He're's a sample:

"How long do you think you'll take?"

"Well I've got 5 years of guaranteed funding..."

"You should probably aim for 3.5 to 4"

"..."

"I have all these students who start and then get distracted by other projects and don't finish. I don't want to see that happen to you."

"I haven't even started yet."

"It would really be better if you just got it done as quickly as possible"

"..."

...

My mom once said: Mh, I don't see why I should support your dream ( = going to Harvard). We couldn't have coffee as often as we do now.

[CooCooCachoo]

...

My mom once said: Mh, I don't see why I should support your dream ( = going to Harvard). We couldn't have coffee as often as we do now.

My aunt thought the university I am currently doing a Master's degree at - the one with all those spires, and the carnage that ends up on Inspector Morse's plate - was a building in London. No kidding.

[balderdash]

My aunt thought the university I am currently doing a Master's degree at - the one with all those spires, and the carnage that ends up on Inspector Morse's plate - was a building in London. No kidding.

At least she didn't think it was actually a circus.

[Ironheel!!]

My family has no background whatsoever in academia. My sister - the only one in my direct family to have completed some form of tertiary education (akin to a polytechnic, not at uni) - didn't even know what a PhD was.

I can second this. Dad was military and mom has an associates. Other extended family went to college but mostly elementry ed. So, in that respect, the only thing my parents understand is that I'm going to be one of those "old dads" and that I'll be 30-something before I start a career. Also, they are good ole fashion right wingers, and I am reading Kropotkins memoirs... The argument of "it's a life time pursuit or I hope to be teaching until I'm a 100" has no impact at all. Also, they dont understand why I dont go to (insert state U close to home). Its kind of refreashing not to have to get overly into talking about what I'm doing or hope to do with them, but on another level, I really missed out on parents who should have kicked my ass in UG when I maintained a shit GPA for a few semesters.

[ohsnap]

My mother is from Mexico and started working before she was even done with high school. She has since gotten her GED. Dad went to college (to play football), but did not finish. He wasn't drafted or anything, he just needed money and the NCAA wouldn't let student-athletes have an outside job.

They've never been anything but supportive. There's never been any pressure to make certain grades or enter into a certain profession. It's been nice.

[whirlibird]

My mom and dad both did their undergrad at big state schools (different states) and went on to do cool but completely academically unrelated things. My aunt and uncle, with whom I'm quite close, are both humanities PhDs who have worked as professors and my aunt moved into administration as a dean, president, and then chancellor. They're the ones in my family who have the post-undergrad experience and have been my best source of information, despite coming from a different field. I didn't grow up around academia, though, so I have a little of both worlds, I guess.

I guess all of OUR kids will be of the "parents have PhD" type, though, huh?

[saltlakecity2012]

My aunt thought the university I am currently doing a Master's degree at - the one with all those spires, and the carnage that ends up on Inspector Morse's plate - was a building in London. No kidding.

Inspector Morse is fabulous.

Also, swisschocolate, both of my parents are professors at a top 10 school, and academia is a pretty popular pursuit in my extended family. I would say that helped me significantly in my undergraduate applications, and one of my parents was particularly helpful with providing comments on my SOP this fall, but despite the fact that both of my parents are social scientists and that we actually are interested in simliar things, I don't know how much direct influence they had.

I would say that the ways I think they helped me the most are through taking me with them when they traveled, introducing me to certain ideas and ways of thinking early on, and always telling me that I can do anything I set my mind to. There are definite downsides, however - insane pressure to conform to the traditional family path, a lack of visible alternative options for careers, and more insane pressure to excel in every way possible.

I was also that weird kid who spent most of my time with middle-aged social scientists rather than other children...

[blackcoffee64]

Father and mother both worked in manufacturing for a while in SC until my father managed to audit classes/take MCAT/ and get into medical school. I feel you, salt lake, on pressure - my parents have wanted me to go to medical school so much they made me take the MCAT my sophomore year (actually scored 132 and got in..). They are very supportive of what I want to do since I began going to conferences/researched in China, but to them a PHD still means "piled high and deep" .

[Adornopolisci2012]

Dad didn't finish high school because his mother needed him to work full-time to supplement their family income. He owns a small business today. Mother recently completed a Master's degree in a health field and is a healthcare professional. No pressure. My folks let me do my thing, while thinking i'm a nut.

[expfcwintergreen]

My mom has a BA in English from a Canadian provincial university; my dad has a BE in chemical engineering from the same school and a Ph.D. from a top-15 (in his field) state university. He works in the private sector, though.

My parents are thrilled that I'm going for the Ph.D., but my dad thinks I'm a little bit insane for wanting to go into academia. He keeps reminding me that I could work for the Foreign Service, or a think-tank, or the government. He's an engineer, and I suspect he doesn't quite grasp the distinction between politics and political science.

Edited February 16, 2012 by expfcwintergreen

[saltlakecity2012]

My mom has a BA in English from a Canadian provincial university; my dad has a BE in chemical engineering from the same school and a Ph.D. from a top-15 (in his field) state university. He works in the private sector, though.

My parents are thrilled that I'm going for the Ph.D., but my dad thinks I'm a little bit insane for wanting to go into academia. He keeps reminding me that I could work for the Foreign Service, or a think-tank, or the government. He's an engineer, and I suspect he doesn't quite grasp the distinction between politics and political science.

Yeah - one of my parents keeps telling me I should be a member of the Senate within 10 years. I continue to respond with, "but I hate politicians, and no one in their right mind would ever vote for me," but the point doesn't seem to come across too clearly