Michael Shaner

CNS 220
My genogram includes my immediate family members along with my grandparents.
While not every individual on my diagram has directly influenced my future, they have all
played some role in shaping who I have and will become.
My father has influenced me more than anyone else in my family. Not only is his
education applicable to my own, but his career has shown a path that I would be very interested
in following. He originally wanted to be a stock broker and had a job in the industry until the
stock market crashed in the 80s. This left him very doubtful of the potential upward movement
in this field and he decided to pursue a career that was not as susceptible to the volatility of the
financial markets. Even though he left this profession behind, he still possesses a strong interest,
which he conveys to me. We consistently speak about past and current financial markets and
how we might be able to make sense of things that will happen in the future. Such conversations
while I was growing up would be responsible for me wanting to learn more about the economy.
Using his college education, he was able to transition into a computer science position.
Computer Science is topic that I have not given much consideration to in my life until recently.
After taking a class in the area during my freshman year at Wake, I recognized that it could
potentially be something that I would be interested in. However, I decided to pursue
Mathematical Economics which is applicable to another area of study that my father developed
in college. My enjoyment in math began at home where my father and I would have small
everyday math competitions. An example would be nonchalantly racing to see who could
compute the 20% tip on a restaurant bill at the end of a meal. I developed this interest through
high school, at which point I knew that I wanted to heavily focus on math in college.

While my fathers next position was in the computer science field, there was also a
significant amount of supply chain analysis involved in his work. This type of analysis of a
business is very interesting to me because I like the notion of increasing the overall efficiency of
a model. An area such as this one is very applicable to my major and I have come to recognize
how much of an effect that my father has had on the educational path that I have chosen to
follow. While I have not decided to pursue compute science it is something that I will always be
interested in and hopefully I will be able to incorporate it into my future career given my
educational background.
Following the large impact that my father has had on me, my mother has also had a
significant effect on who I want to be. As the oldest of eight brothers and sisters, she was forced
to lead her family especially following the early death of her father. My mother was able to
utilize her leadership skills and her education in economics to start her own business. I grew up
wanting to be an entrepreneur because of what I learned from my mother. Later in life I began to
recognize how much devotion and natural ability it requires at which point I decided that a
vocation in a more structured environment would be best for me. Her business and economics
background has greatly influenced me to enter into the business field where I can use my
strengths. Where my mother and I differ in career paths is her strong inclination to practice
customer facing. This is an area of business that I would prefer to stay away from due to my shy
nature. However, I recognize that this is how she has been able to successfully follow her career
path.
I have recently witnessed my sister enter into the business world and although we do not
share the same interests, she has been able to guide me in different aspects of professionalism
and work ethic that will benefit me as I make the same journey. I most likely lack similarities

with my grandparents due to the opportunities that I had in achieving a college education. From
what I have learned through speaking with my grandparents, they were all very hardworking and
instilled these values into my parents. My parents have, in turn, conveyed these beliefs into my
sister and me with the hope that we will adopt them as they once did. Overall my genogram has
given me greater detail on how I have been influenced by family members in the beginnings of
my career.