[speaker001:] Dallas about another block over and I'm in Garland
[speaker002:] well that's funny I didn't expect to have any more calls
[speaker001:] so I'm not very far away oh okay
[speaker002:] I thought I was uh through I had done ten
[speaker001:] oh I don't know is there a limit on it
[speaker002:] well I thought ten was the maximum
[speaker001:] okay I didn't know that because I got to be pushing ten some where I lost count around six or seven
[speaker002:] yeah yeah I've been writing mine down just in case anything you know just
[speaker001:] yeah I should have been and I just I just forgot to uh so uh we're going you work at TI
[speaker002:] hm I did I don't any more my husband does
[speaker001:] oh I I I do but I'm not going to be at the end of this month so
[speaker002:] oh well where you going
[speaker001:] I'm an ex TI'er I'm uh I'm officially retiring unofficially I'm going to go to work for a supplier of ours
[speaker002:] oh how neat well that's a good choice
[speaker001:] uh I a company called Onum uh it it yeah it's located in Korea
[speaker002:] oh Onum yeah I know them I used to work with them
[speaker001:] oh you you you you did
[speaker002:] I was a mechanical engineer I did uh package design and I uh when we first contacted Onum years ago
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] I was part of the Gene Rickey
[speaker001:] oh okay well you worked with a whole bunch of friends of mine then
[speaker002:] was part of that yep probably
[speaker001:] yeah yeah I know Gene's in Sherman now
[speaker002:] yeah he's been there for since I left
[speaker001:] oh okay and I was in the Philippines for about three or four years and Gene used to come out and visit us uh when I was in the Philippines and
[speaker002:] well I worked up there for a year oh yeah he made a lot of trips
[speaker001:] yeah well the the vice president for operations for Onum stationed in Korea is a guy named Michael Bryant
[speaker002:] um I don't know him
[speaker001:] the he used to be a a vice in fact he started four of the TI plants
[speaker002:] hum
[speaker001:] and he left TI about eight or nine years ago and went elsewhere and he's he came through town and visited with me and bottom line is I'm going to retire and go to work for him
[speaker002:] that's sound like a good deal
[speaker001:] so uh we're going to talk about about advice giving uh giving parents to kids uh selecting colleges you about ready to talk
[speaker002:] yeah go ahead
[speaker001:] okay you said you're Judy
[speaker002:] yes
[speaker001:] okay Judy  okay I'm I feel I'm like I'm almost an expert on this subject I've got two in college and if one doesn't graduate I'm going to have three there by September
[speaker002:] well how did they decide which colleges to go to and what did what'd you tell them
[speaker001:] well it's it's interesting because it sort of fits their it sort of fits their personality uh my oldest who's a senior at UTD now she uh uh always our house borders Richland College I mean you walk out our back door and you're on the campus and she uh has always uh never really wanted to leave home and uh it turns out that when she came time to go to college well we're in the Philippines in fact she stayed out there with us for a year then uh uh we brought her back and set her up in an apartment she went to Richland and then moved back in the house when we got back but she just kind of went to from Richland to UTD and it's too bad she's never lived on a campus and she has a younger sister who's a freshman at Saint Edwards in Austin who is living on a campus
[speaker002:] hum because
[speaker001:] and she sees what what she's missed out of college now wishes that she'd done something like that
[speaker002:] well now
[speaker001:] but at at eighteen you know uh uh I I wanted I wanted her to go away but she was just too much of a home kid
[speaker002:] yeah that's uh that's kind of the way I was when I started school I was in Midland and when I was looking for things and and and what I would probably recommend to other people was something that I was comfortable with and I wasn't quite ready to be a long ways off
[speaker001:] uh-huh um
[speaker002:] and maybe and I knew I wanted to be in engineering so I was looking for a good engineering school so I ended up going to Tech in Lubbock
[speaker001:] oh okay
[speaker002:] so I was there I was you know two hours away from home so any weekend I wanted to come home I got in the car hopped you know I was home in a couple of hours and so that worked out real well and
[speaker001:] yeah oh yeah that that yeah yeah that's not a bad deal well my my middle daughter who's a freshman she has always wanted to live on campus and she'd been kind of a home body I mean this is the kid who who uh when she was little and went to stay over at somebody's house at night I'd always know I'd get a call at ten o'clock to come get her
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] uh I mean because it when it came bedtime she wanted to be in her own bed but uh she uh
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] uh I was raised in New England and went to school in New England and she always thought she wanted to go to school in New England she and I took an interview trip last year and she was accepted by several of the of the good schools there but when it came down time to make a decision she said dad I don't think I want to go that far away I've never been away before so uh uh she wanted to go to a small school so uh UT like a place like UT was out of the question because she needed to be in a more of a small smaller school environment so uh we went down one uh uh I took a day off from work and
[speaker002:] um-hum um-hum
[speaker001:] and we went down uh to Saint Edwards and interviewed and it it just kind of met her her criteria it's a school of about twenty five hundred undergraduates on a gigantic big campus and it's in Austin's a nice city
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] uh and it's and she's pretty happy I mean she's here she's finishing up her freshman year and she's pretty happy and likes Austin and I got a son though who is a senior at Berkner he is not academically inclined at all he's very uh kind of unacademically inclined he wants badly to go to Tech because that's where all all his friends in the neighborhood are going
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] and he uh I don't think he didn't apply I don't think he'd get admitted there but he's starting to get enough motivated he wants to go there that I think he'll go to Richland and take what he needs to have to take to qualify in Tech and then try to go to Tech the next year
[speaker002:] oh well that'd be good I think he'd enjoy a lot it's a it's a good school it's a good place to grow up
[speaker001:] yeah oh sure yeah right and and he went out there and spent a weekend with some friends here back a month or two and and what I like is that when he saw it I think he's now motivated to to to go to work
[speaker002:] um-hum oh so those the academic standards will improve yeah
[speaker001:] yeah yeah yeah and the uh uh in in you know one thing you know in in terms of how how I I would advise people is of course you got to look at what you can afford too and the state school system in Texas uh is probably one of the least expensive in the world
[speaker002:] um-hum absolutely
[speaker001:] uh again I mean people think it's expensive but you my goodn ess state schools in Massachusetts and the other New England states cost more than private schools do here
[speaker002:] and he yeah yes and and a lot of people that I knew had would go to school in some really you you know Rochester and some of these really nice these uh name schools and and of course they would get out but they got they ended up getting more or less the same job I did and then they but they're thirty thousand in debt from student loans
[speaker001:] yeah they end up yeah yeah you end up getting the same degree and it's it's uh uh now I I think that that what happens is the prestige you you can't you you can't sell that too much
[speaker002:] no
[speaker001:] uh beca use after all the degree just gets you in the door
[speaker002:] yes and it's what you do afterwards
[speaker001:] it's it's what you do after that that that that that uh it that really judges how far you're going to go with a degree
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and I think that uh it's getting so darned expensive now I went to a school in Maine Bowden College in Brunswick Maine and uh it's a a small at that time all male school there are more uh uh males uh men's schools than women's schools in those days they're all all the old New England traditional schools are now coed
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] but uh and you know I'm I'm talking about the early nineteen fifties and you know tuition was six hundred dollars a year my goodness it's eighteen thousand now
[speaker002:] hm yeah it's incredible now
[speaker001:] and I don't know how and uh I mean they always have a waiting list a mile long for students and the only thing I did notice is about seventy percent of the students are on some kind of financial aid
[speaker002:] yeah yeah and they're all going to have to pay it back they're going to be in debt for the rest of their lives
[speaker001:] and and they're going to be in they're going to be in debt for the rest of their lives yeah uh uh
[speaker002:] I guess the the main thing if I was recommending to someone like you said you've you've got you've got do something you can afford but then to go to a school that also is is somewhat well known at least in the state for what you want to do
[speaker001:] yeah yeah
[speaker002:] because like Tech is known to be a good engineering school and A and M maybe is known more for computers
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] and that kind of thing I would I would if if you know what you're going to do I think that would be important to deal with too because when you then when you do try and get your foot in the door at the various companies the companies that you would possibly want to work for tend to interview more heavily at those locations because they know that that particular school had a good department you know in in computer science or in engineering or in business or or whatever
[speaker001:] yeah I I I I think that's exactly right and you know a lot of girls that go into engineering know what they want to do uh you know I've got two daughters that started off going well well well my oldest thought she wanted to major in psychology and she's carried through on that uh uh Tracy is what in April of her freshman year and she's gone from political science to international studies to bilingual education to elementary education and fortunately as a as a freshman everything she's taken has has been uh is applicable
[speaker002:] um-hum will transfer so that's good yeah
[speaker001:] yeah it's it's it's applicable to those degrees and and and those are strong degrees all of them in in the school that she's going
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and and I I think you made a very good point though that somebody that is really has some direction and knows what they want to do uh then they need to go go to a school that's got a good reputation in that field
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and uh uh but I would guess a very very small percent of college freshmen know what they want to do
[speaker002:] I I think to some extent you're right most people have a general idea
[speaker001:] yeah yeah I
[speaker002:] and then there's there's probably that probably fifty percent have a general idea and the other fifty percent are waiting to see what hits them when they get there
[speaker001:] yeah yeah I I went I went off to school wanting to either be a high school algebra teacher or high school French teacher because my two favorite people in the in high school were my algebra teacher and French teacher and uh and I was going to do that until the end of our sophomore year when we wanted uh we came time to sign up for majors and I had taken chemistry for the first time that year and surprised myself I did well in it
[speaker002:] hum
[speaker001:] and and sort of made a decision as we were walking me and a friend of mine were walking over to campus uh to to sign up for our majors it was just sort of an off the wall decision and uh uh but I had no earthly I didn't do well in chemistry in high school and had no earthly idea that I'd get my degree in chemistry
[speaker002:] hm
[speaker001:] on on the way in so it's uh but I I think uh a person who has some idea like you did is is is well uh you you know that that helps a lot were you uh well prepared for Tech in in your school did you go to public school in Midland
[speaker002:] yes I had yeah I was in public school I was in all honors classes I was also a a National Merit Scholar
[speaker001:] oh okay well you you you had a lot of things going
[speaker002:] and I had the I think the other thing that a lot of kids would benefit from in high school is taking an aptitude test
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] because there are some good ones out there and I know in in our high school at least they offered several different ones where you went through and you know you answer all these questions back and forth and things it it ended up being things that you liked versus things that you had an aptitude