I don’t know what’s more amazing – that I got into Berkeley, or that I got out.
I first learned about the significance of Berkeley in my 10th grade chemistry class. Mr. Chuck LaDue, our teacher, would talk about the labs and research conducted at the Lawrence Livermore lab above and behind the Berkeley campus. I was pleased when looking down on the lab from the hills above that the buildings were just as Mr. LaDue described them.
It’s hard to describe how unprepared I was for Berkeley. Maybe something like dropping a minnow into an ocean.
I’m thinking about this because of an excellent 2 hour documentary I just watched about the development of the atomic bomb. While little of the Manhattan Project was developed at Berkeley, walking through the labs and lecture halls you’d hear the names of the key players spoken often.
The closest I ever got to anyone from the Manhattan project was attending an Atlanta Aero Club meeting where General Tibbets gave a nice talk. General Tibbets flew the Enola Gay when it dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
I had neither the drive or discipline for work in pure science or engineering. It was almost an accident that I picked up computer programming. Programming relied on logic and creativity – and that fueled the drive and discipline I needed to succeed.
A couple of academic footnotes spotlight the lack of direction I had when entering Berkeley. My initial plan was to get a degree in Chemistry. But I got better grades in English than I did in my science classes. And while I struggled in all the mathematics from arithmetic to calculus due to the memorization required, my first “A” at Berkeley was in abstract algebra. These were my clues.
What I remember about you was my impression that you had a firm sense of direction. You projected confidence. I was jealous of that.
It took me at least 10 years after graduation to have the confidence to propel my career, and my life, forward. Considering this, maybe it was a good thing we didn’t find love in our tender years.
Now the amazing things are both that I met you and that you’re here.