Friends University, Caltech and University of Kansas

Abstract

I was a C+ student in high school, but no less resolved to go to college. Where to go? No one in my family could help. A book I found stated that the best college in the USA was Caltech. So, I decided to go to Caltech. No pretense here, only an incredible dose of naiveté and ignorance. To be accepted you had to perform on three 3-hour examinations in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. I decided to prepare for the examinations by going to Friends University, a local Quaker college about a mile from my home. I quit my job at Boeing in August 1944 and enrolled at Friends. Over the next academic year, I registered for classes in physics, chemistry, calculus, spherical trigonometry, and astronomy. I was a straight A student in an environment in which grades measured performance, and mine was high. In the spring of 1945, I sat for all three examinations over three days, passed, and I enrolled at Caltech. It was clear at the outset that Caltech was an academic meat grinder like none I could have imagined. I graduated in 1949, switching from physics to electrical engineering as a senior, and acquiring an interest in economics. I returned to Kansas, this time Lawrence, and the University of Kansas to study for an MA in economics. It was a period of great joy and excrement. I lived in the interracial coop houses at KU and continued to be a racial, social , and political activist. An education in economics was only marginally modifying my socialist outlook, but KU opened a completely new world in economics. I applied at Chicago, MIT, Stanford, and Carnegie Tech; accepted at all, I moved to Harvard.