Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 9, 1993                   TAG: 9305090050
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

THEY'RE WIRED FOR ENGINEERING

Or perhaps it was a strong suggestion on the part of John Polcari, father of this brood from Charleston, W.Va.

But it has to be more than coincidence that caused eight of the 10 Polcari children to pursue degrees in electrical engineering - four of them at Virginia Tech.

(The other two majored in computer science and chemical engineering.)

On Saturday, as Virginia Tech conferred degrees upon some 4,000 seniors, master's and doctoral candidates, Cathy Polcari, donned the same orange tassel that three of her sisters had in previous years.

"Dad always encouraged us to go into engineering," she said. "He said it was a good career decision, that it was useful for finding a job."

And all of the Polcari children have jobs, including the newest graduate, who will begin working with a research and development subsidiary of Northern Telecom this summer.

"My oldest brother majored in double-e and loved it," Polcari said. "Once he went, the rest of us just kept following in his footsteps."

Cathy Polcari had always favored math and science, and she liked analyzing problems.

The choice seemed logical.

And if she needed help, there were always plenty of people to ask.

"One time, I was working on a project I didn't understand and I called my sister. She and her husband were both engineers. But they said, `You have to do this yourself - we did,' " she said. "I never really wanted to call on them for help. I just wanted to be able to figure it out."

Graduation at Tech this year was the first in recent history to actually be held in the sunshine.

On Main Street in Blacksburg, flags bearing the Virginia Tech logo flapped in the breeze. On campus, the graduates' robes billowed out as they filed into Lane Stadium in the usual commencement fashion.

In England, graduation is called simply that, John M. Ashworth, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, told the graduates. It is seen as an end rather than a beginning.

"Your teachers would be distressed if you told them your education ended today," he said. "You will continue to learn all through your life."

The world now is more complex and complicated than it was a decade ago, he said. "Capitalism has won. Freedom has won. God has blessed America."

But there are different kinds of capitalism, he said. And freedom hasn't won everywhere.

"What I think is that your world will be more like your grandparents' or great-grand-parents' world," he said.

Though the technology will be different, "those passions, the things that cause societies to behave as they do, will look eerily familiar."

But obstacles and ills can be dealt with as they were dealt with before, he said. "That is your task."

U.S. Rep. Owen Pickett of Virginia Beach received Tech's 1993 University Distinguished Service Award.

Pickett is a 1952 graduate of Tech.