1976. Stanford University

Good Fortune

Someone accidentally put my application in the "Accepted" pile. I'm pretty sure. I started out in exploring social sciences and German. Sophmore year I lived in Berlin -- still divided at that time by The Wall. In my junior and senior years I got hooked on computers, started drinking coffee and learned some Japanese. I combined the oddball mix of credits into a degree in International Relations. Coursework was manageable. The biggest challenge was paying for it, but hustling for good part time jobs to cover tuition taught me a lot about seeing opportunity and the importance of hard work. I took accounting and wrote a program to keep the books of "Campus Enterprises", the umbrella for my various temp jobs. Then I deducted a portion of tuition on my taxes as education expense.