Yesterday, as I was preparing for and teaching my graduate seminar at George Washington University, people all over California were demonstrating in favor of a state policy making education available and affordable for all the residents of that state. My best wishes go to the demonstrators and I hope their protest is successful.
I grew up in California, benefiting from good primary and secondary public schools in Los Angeles. I got a B.S. from UCLA, an M.S.E.E. from U.C. Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from U.C. Irvine. All were affordable, and UCLA was tuition free when I attended in the 1950s. My parents could not have afforded to send me to college and I was able to work at low paid jobs as a reader and teaching assistant as an undergraduate and in the first years of graduate school in order to cover incidental costs. Those jobs contributed considerably to my education.
I am grateful for the opportunities that the educational system provided! I have benefited all my life from that education, and I think I have paid back some of the debt by teaching at the university level for more than a dozen years, with a career in public service, and through years as a volunteer,
No comments:
Post a Comment