I studied chemical engineering. I was a good student, but these were the hard times of the depression, my scholarship came to an end, and it was necessary to work to supplement the family income.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In the evenings I studied chemistry at the University of Chicago, the weekends I helped in the family store.
My professional apprenticeship at Iowa State College from 1930 to 1943 could not have been better; the Great Depression made it so, and the talented younger economists at Ames during that period made it an exciting and profitable intellectual experience.
There is no one area of chemical engineering that specifically helped me in my career as an astronaut, it was more the general education in engineering. Also, it was a very difficult and rigorous course. So, it made me strong and resourceful.
I was good at math and science, and it was expected that I would attend the University of Washington in Seattle and become an engineer. But by the time I was seventeen, I was ready to leave home, a decision my parents agreed to support if I could obtain a scholarship. MIT did not grant me one, but the University of Chicago did.
I wasn't that academic, but I always made sure I was earning money. I never wanted to put all my eggs in one basket. Even when I started doing music, my parents were like, 'You need to work; you can't just live off music.' I always knew that. So I worked until I knew I was going to be financially okay.
My mother, whose interest in chemistry was rather minimal, nevertheless went to graduate school in the subject and married my father, for whom it was as important as life itself.
I was nerdy girl who went to Catholic school and wanted to be an engineer. I was all set to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology. And then I took a hard left turn and studied Liberal Arts at Northern Illinois University, majored in Communications. Then worked in radio as a disk jockey and as the weather girl.
I grew up hearing stories about how my maternal grandfather had put himself through engineering school in New York City. He saved money by walking down to a gas station once a week to take a shower. When I applied to college, both education and investment value were important to me.
When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money.
My interest in science had many roots. Some came from my mother as she finished her B.A. degree studies in college while I was in my early teens.
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