Commencement: Mother, daughter engineering grads will march in May 5 ceremony

By Larry Wood

Melissa and Rebecca Campbell just might have engineered a first for the College of Engineering and Information Technology.

According to student personnel records, the Campbells probably are the first mother and daughter to graduate from the college's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering--mother Melissa with a master's degree and daughter Rebecca with a bachelor's.

"I'm not sure when we figured out that it was going to time out the way that it did, but at some point, we realized that we would finish at the same time," Rebecca said.

Melissa began working part-time on her bachelor's degree in civil and environmental engineering when Rebecca was about 6. With working full-time at the S.C. Department of Transportation (DOT) in Columbia, commuting 57 miles one way from Camden, and taking time off when her son was born, she finished nearly 12 years later in the December before Rebecca graduated from high school in May.

Melissa started working on her master's degree the year Rebecca enrolled as a freshman at USC. This time, both mother and daughter finished together in four years.

Although mother and daughter had the same major, they never took a class together because Melissa was working on her master's when Rebecca got to USC, but they did have several professors in common. They both took their undergraduate senior capstone class from Michael E. Meadows.

"Mom took it from him five years ago, and I took it last semester," Rebecca said. "He thought it was hilarious because he thought we seemed a lot alike and we talk alike. That was interesting."

And sometimes, they would run in to each other in the hall between classes. "A lot of my friends knew my mom from classes they had taken with her and thought it was so cool," Rebecca said.

Melissa liked seeing Rebecca at school, but it often confused her classmates when the two passed in the hall.

"There have been some funny times when we would be standing in the hall chitchatting and someone would walk by and go, what is going on?" Rebecca said.

Melissa definitely influenced Rebecca's decision to become an engineer, but she didn't push her in that direction.

"I'm proud of her because I want her to be happy, which, I think, she is, but I didn't push her toward it because that's what I was doing," Melissa said. "I thought she'd be good at it."

"I went through a period when I was about 16 when I was saying I will not be an engineer," Rebecca said.

"First it was architect. Then it was band director. Then psychologist, and she finally came back to engineering," Melissa said.

Rebecca's 12-year-old brother is thinking about becoming an engineer, too. "We're working on him," Melissa said.

After commencement, Melissa will continue working for S.C. DOT, and Rebecca has taken a job with a small engineering firm in Columbia where she'll work mostly on commercial site development, making sure grading and drainage plans are complete and the proper permits have been secured before construction begins.

Because Melissa and Rebecca will celebrate their graduations on the fifth [commencement for the College of Engineering and Information Technology is May 5], they are planning a Cinco de Mayo-themed dinner at a Mexican restaurant instead of a formal graduate dinner.

"I think that will be more fun," Rebecca said.

5/06