[speaker001:] okay I guess I'll start um one uh big thing that the advise that I would give to a parent to give to his or her child is to let their let their child experience college in a kind of general sense I like large colleges because I went to University of Texas at Austin they have fifty thousand students there and I feel like that now if I went if I had gone to a small college that only had a couple of thousand that I wouldn't have have gotten as much exposure to different people and different uh I don't know different languages different cultures and things like that just by being around those fifty thousand students
[speaker002:] that's interesting I went to a smaller school of probably three thousand thirty five hundred and I I I thought that was the best experience in that
[speaker001:] um-hum uh-huh um-hum
[speaker002:] we had more one-on-one since we seemed to know everyone on campus and we had a broad spectrum of languages and cultures and
[speaker001:] hum
[speaker002:] and backgrounds and so forth so I thought it was wonderful to be a bigger fish and not so much a number um
[speaker001:] hm um-hum
[speaker002:] one of fifty thousand I was one of three thousand and and you know different perspectives I uh but it sounds like we were both kind of looking at the same sort of sort of thing
[speaker001:] right um-hum yeah yeah yeah I I could see I could see that point I could see how it would be I'm sure your classes were a lot smaller um because like we would have biology classes that did main courses that everyone has to take I mean hundreds of students in this class so actually yes you were a number
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] but um I I just I don't know I'm thinking in a sense of uh just being exposed to more it just seems like in a larger college you I don't know you're exposed to so many more people from all over the world and I'm sure a lot of people come to you know small colleges also but just that they're more of of the different cultures there not that it not that it's better but I'm just saying that I think that big
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah that's one thing to definitely consider
[speaker001:] uh-huh uh-huh I think uh a lot of a lot of students now would probably be afraid of a smaller college a lot of the students that I talked to even here in Waco they go to Baylor um they or they're considering going to Baylor they're also considering going to UT Austin but one of the big no no is because of the fifty thousand students and I have to tell them that just like just Waco like I live in Waco it's a large city I can still function in my own kind of area in my own group I have a job I have my friends and I'm really not as as concerned about the entire city so when you go to a big
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] a big university you're not as concerned about the entire university but your group of friends your classes your interests your clubs and things like that
[speaker002:] yeah I think that's probably key to me is not so much the size of the school but what what are the particular needs of
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] the students and whereas some would immediately feel very comfortable in this um larger university setting some of the students um when I was when I was teaching school
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] would not have been comfortable with that they needed uh at at least at first
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum right
[speaker002:] they needed a smaller setting that that was more like family where they could get one-on-one from from teachers professors and so forth and then after a year or two move on to
[speaker001:] right um-hum
[speaker002:] a little bit bigger pond where where when they had a little more self-confidence built up oh yes I can do this oh I've done this before it's just in a bigger setting and so maybe to me
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum right
[speaker002:] the key would be what what are what are the child's the the student's needs and what what school or schools can best meet those those needs besides education you you you can expect
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum
[speaker002:] all of them with uh uh uh accreditation accreditation to give the education but it's these other things that you and I are are keying off on that that are really more of an education that but they're the things that don't show up in
[speaker001:] uh-huh on paper um-hum exactly that's that's one important thing that I think about school I'm I'm not a kind a person that I didn't I I was kind of a B student I guess you'd say and I didn't really
[speaker002:] that's right that's right
[speaker001:] I was I strived strived to be an A student but it wasn't like a real priority to my my priority was just
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] being as worldly as I could possibly be getting into as many organizations as I could possibly could and and one other point I was going to make was that I can understand I can see that probably if I had gone to a smaller school I would probably have more friends
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] because you like you said you know you know everybody knows everybody and so you probably come out of it knowing and by friends I mean like contacts for when you get out of school
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] um you know you just you may walk into a company and see someone you went to school with more so at a small college then a large college you may have gone to school with them but you wouldn't you wouldn't know them uh
[speaker002:] um-hum yeah
[speaker001:] I guess let me think of another important thing to look at when you look into college
[speaker002:] I guess I guess now I've been out for I I'm I'm older than you I've been out for twenty one years and I was looking at an annual last night uh something had sparked it sparked a question and I went to a
[speaker001:] uh um-hum um-hum
[speaker002:] small private school um and it was church related and I got to looking at my class of sixty nine
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum um-hum
[speaker002:] and I realized that even though that school's two hundred miles from here and I've lived in other states and done other things for the past twenty years where I go to church now there are five other people that went to school at the same time in the same class as I and it it's neat to know that we have that contact that goes back that some of the same
[speaker001:] wow um-hum
[speaker002:] memories if not the same education education in you know we we weren't all out to be teachers or or whatever so we didn't have the same classes but we had a common thread something that still ties us together twenty odd years later
[speaker001:] um-hum right wow that's great
[speaker002:] and it's it's it's kind of neat just knowing that those kinds of things
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] those are what I carry beyond just that piece of paper that allows me to be an exempt at TI
[speaker001:] right right
[speaker002:] I have something more important to me than that
[speaker001:] that's great that's great yeah that's what I that's basically what I and when I first I've been out of college only two years now so it's still pretty fresh on my memory um
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] but now that I'm out when I went into school my parents told well my father okay let me let me go back to my my sister now is is in college and my father was really interested in getting her in a school that
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] would look good on her on her uh diploma etcetera and so forth and and I kept pushing her towards
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] just kind of U UT or a larger school and it was just a big conflict between us because my father wanted the academics and I wanted her to get the life experience out of it and so it was you know she went the academic way because she's a straight A student which is yeah yeah yeah so she you know that's probably
[speaker002:] uh-huh I was going to ask who won
[speaker001:] you know what she what she wants anyway but that was the big deal and
[speaker002:] in in that case uh regardless of what you or your father pushed for it sounds like she was going for what she needed and finding a school that that met her specific requirements and and made the best fit for her
[speaker001:] right right and that that's another point is that the a parent should tell their child to be or or to give their child the leeway to choose their school not so much choose the school for them but you know kind of guide them along but let them more or less choose what they need and what they're going to do
[speaker002:] yeah I think it helps uh uh now my grandfather was going to pay if I went to uh what's now UT Arlington because it was there in my hometown I could live at home but I chose to go to another school
[speaker001:] um-hum right
[speaker002:] and even though he was pleased that it was a church related school he was not willing to pay any at all even the same amount of money and and I think I value my my education more because I had to work for it
[speaker001:] hum right um-hum
[speaker002:] and because I knew all along that's what I wanted even even though I had to buck the family in order to to do what I needed to do
[speaker001:] um-hum right well that was pretty courageous
[speaker002:] so um I I guess I guess it was it was my mother's support that got me through it that and ten years of of uh loans after I got out
[speaker001:] yeah oh yeah yeah I I'm I'm dealing with the loans right now so so oh yes very every every month that memory just shoots back in my mailbox
[speaker002:] sounds familiar huh your it's very fresh in your memory well uh yeah yes well sorry about that Tanya
[speaker001:] so oh well I guess I'll get over it but oh yeah yeah okay
[speaker002:] I'm sure it was worth it though if if nothing else because I work in training at TI now if nothing else just
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] those experiences beyond and and including your educational classes that help give you the self-esteem to do and achieve whatever you set your mind on
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum
[speaker002:] and the you you made the right choice in going to a school that met all of your needs to make to give you the the potential to do whatever you wanted
[speaker001:] right because when you when you do want when you do finally graduate that that's what you need the most I'm finding out now that what I'm needing the most now is not smarts not what I can do on paper it's stamina courage uh words it
[speaker002:] young lady you have gotten your education then that's that's right
[speaker001:] yes I'm needing you know myself I'm needing to rely on myself and I think I learned a lot of that in school too
[speaker002:] yeah