okay
okay
well did you go to college
yes i did
and where did you go
i went to a small liberal arts college in Virginia
uh-huh
um it was Sweeper College it was about seven hundred and fifty students i had
gone to a small
school growing up uh
and a lot of my friends went
to univerty University of Michigan but my parents were retiring in South Carolina when i graduated and
um were looking for a southern school and
um-hum
um also U of M seemed overwhelming in size and
um
what about you
well i went to the University of Minnesota
oh so you're from the Midwest too
i am uh-huh where do you live now
um i live in Texas now where are you
well i'm in Texas i'm in Austin
oh um my brother's in Austin
um he lives Lakeway he um had moved uh we're in Plano
uh-huh
i'm familiar with Plano i visited once or twice
and
oh Austin is so pretty i really like it
oh i love it i love it i really do
and your daughter is going to be a sophomore
that's correct i have two daughters but my oldest will be will be a sophomore
is um because you live in Austin is she thinking about the University of Texas
she has her heart set on U T
and um you know having gone to the University of Minnesota
i know what a big university is like and um
one thing that i did this summer which i thought might benefit both my daughters
is my youngest daughter got involved in band and Baylor has a band camp
oh
so she went for a week and it was overnight and they lived in the dorms
and i thought this would expose both of them to what it's you know like on a college a smaller college campus
and um my oldest one just wasn't impressed at all with the idea of a small school
so um
i i i still think the exposure was good
yes
the reason i ask if you went to college is i thought well you know what were your selection criteria did you base it
on what you wanted to major in or what you would feel comfortable with or what you could afford or you know there's all of these
areas to look at in making the decision
um yeah those um and those were several uh
that we did consider um my parents
uh um certainly didn't push but
wanted me to look in the south and because i had been in a small school
they suggested that i probably i when i say small my graduating class had eighteen in it
oh wow
and so they suggested that i might want a smaller school because i was used to a lot of one-on-one
oh definitely
um or small group situations and
i did pick it because at the time i was interested in majoring in
biology and i also wanted to spend
um-hum
one year studying in Europe um i had had an A F S student
from Germany live with us our senior year
oh how exciting
i and we just thought that would be a wonderful thing and
i ended up majoring in French one of the reasons i picked the school was because they had a strong science department
they also had a strong language department and i'd always loved working with children um
and
i found that i couldn't
fit everything in
but because i had had a fair amount of French going in i was able
um-hum
to do my year's study in France and able to take a lot of the other courses that
interested me um
oh that was a that worked out very well for you
and so that was some of but
several of the things you mentioned were the things that um
our son has talked a lot about Texas A and M he's but he thinks he wants to be a writer and i don't think that
well then he should come to U T
yes
um and really his
his graduating class will probably be in the neighborhood of eight hundred and fifty to a thousand
um-hum
um
and so he's used to a bigger size and because my brother is there
large classes
uh he would have family close by so there there are advantages um but i also
because i had so many friends who did go from our small school to
University of Michigan which was so large and they really felt
um like they were numbers
oh i went from a large high school to a university large university and i definitely felt like i was a number um i mean
you still
yeah
it is a different feeling but that was that was my only option
i i mean i just really couldn't look at anything else that was the one and only thing i could really afford other than a junior you know a junior college which i didn't want to do
so that's how you know my decision was made but um
well that's that's certainly um
especially today with the cost of college i mean that is a a major
um consideration and i do feel fortunate that Texas has so many good schools and even though Baylor um
yes
and when you mentioned that we we have friends who have children there
who just love it and for a private school it is not as expensive as most are and it is a smaller size and
um
i do feel like there are a lot of options it's it's
but i had been hoping some schools i know give um
oh even this year Jay had an aptitude
test um
what what does he hopes to be a writer
yes he thinks that's what he'd like to do but he's really strong in math and science too and
huh
we keep encouraging him to keep an open mind does your daughter
know what she'd like to do
oh she she has uh you know interests that are just you know going in all directions um
yeah
what she talks about a lot is theater which i think is okay Bethany let's be real um
she really is is pretty unfocused at this point
and i don't know she's taken a lot of French
and she may end up doing something with that
and i am a single mom so
i've been and i made the mistake of dropping out of college to get married so i'm trying to have my children not make the same mistake
and i'm you know showing them if you're strong in math and science kiddos
this is one area where women can make some decent money
yes
you know i mean i'm kind of really putting the practical
application you know and and saying yet d o something that you enjoy
um-hum
by all means go get that piece of paper you know do you just have one son
yes
i see
well it sounds like he's got some really you know good strong ideas of what he wants to do
well he but he has even now that he's in high school um and of course there's there is
still time but he's beginning to feel that
as much as he enjoys writing he wonders if he can make a living at it you know it's the it's
