After East Texas
My teen years were spent in Tulsa and I graduated from Edison High School in 1963. Although I enjoyed English classes and writing, my math ability led me to apply to Rice University, well-regarded for its science and engineering curricula. At the time, Rice charged no tuition--if you were admitted, you in effect got a full scholarship. This incentive was a big one for my father, who pooh-poohed the idea of my attending distant and expensive Stanford, where I had also been accepted.
I made some good friends at Rice, but was glad when that four-year ordeal was over. I majored in physics, a subject I had to force myself to "get interested in." My proudest memory of Rice is that of overcoming 3-to-1 odds, as quoted by the department chairman after my sophomore year, that I would never make it as a physics major. I did make it, and afterward spent a year in physics graduate study at Duke University. By then, though, I knew that physics was not a lifetime interest. I returned to Texas and entered the more down-to-earth world of electrical engineering, receiving a Masters from University of Texas at Austin in 1970.
