The conversation in Rita Roznowski's Calculus class went something like this:
Me: I'm filling out this college application and I'm supposed to declare a major.
What should I study?
Jeff: Why don't you study computer science? You're good at math and it's the job of the future.
Me: OK.
That was the extent of my career planning in high school. I'd done a couple of simplistic computer programming exercises at Woodbridge American High School, a DOD dependents school in Suffolk, England. My parents didn't seem to care what I studied and my guidance counselor and I were on rocky terms after she found a note that said that she was a heifer. She rightly concluded that since heifer was spelled correctly, the likely culprit was one of a handful of smartasses, who'd been in and out of trouble with the vice principal. Compared to some of my classmates, my transgressions were minor, but Ms. Hogue was right to be leary of me. As one of the students who read the morning announcements, I'd slip a phony meeting in the line up every now and again. (Swiss Navy recruiter in the library at noon, Cast of Bye Bye Birdie please see Mr. Blake during break for an important announcement and such).
I had only seen two college campuses: Cambridge, the crown jewel of British Academia, on one of our periodic field trips to explore our adoptive home and Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. Our high school marching band played at the historically black college one weekend during the years my dad was assigned to Langley Air Force Base. Neither of these esteemed institutions were in my future. I had had dozens of addresses growing up as an air force brat but my permanent address was Tamworth, New Hampshire, so my future was at UNH where I could get in-state tuition.
My family flew back to the states for a visit to Gramma in Tamworth while I moved into the dorms. A late application to the housing department meant that while I got into Christensen, a 500 resident co-ed dormitory, I got into improvised housing. There were 6 of us who were housed in a converted lounge. Three sets of bunk beds and dressers in a space that was intended to be a space for students to hang out. There was a single lightswitch for the entire room and my upper bunk was feet from one of the central klieglights so that I couldn't sleep until everyone was done for the night. Maggie, Csilla, Cheryl, Barb, Marie and I--crammed into each other's lives
It was major culture shock. I'd spent the past two years in the cozy confines of a small school in Eastern England, watching BBC and taking the train into London on weekends. My senior class had 40 people in it; there were 200 in the entire school grades 7 to 12. Now I had 40 people vying for the bathroom. My classmates and I had been listening to different music- Top of the Pops vs. American Top 40, watching different shows, hearing different news, travelling different places on vacations.
My computer science classes were not at all what I thought they'd be- I was quickly overwhelmed by the work I needed to do to keep up. I'd gotten very good grades in high school with little effort so I had little discipline and no solid study skills. Soon I stopped going to class, ensuring that catching up was virtually impossible. My career in computer science began and ended in the fall of 1980. My path was to be one of travel, adventure and writing. Computers were part of the path but not a destination in and of themselves until last summer, when an interview with David Dampier of Mississippi State University opened doors to me that I didn't know I wanted to walk through.
