http://invisible-island.net/personal/
Copyright © 2024 by Thomas E. Dickey
While I was an undergraduate in college, I chose to cut my classes (i.e., not attend lectures). I did this for a good reason, but that was not the beginning of the story.
My experiences in high school laid the foundation. I was not a very diligent student until the ninth grade. Though capable enough, I found no reason to work hard. But I found that mathematics was interesting. The notion that conic sections could be described by mathematical formulae was especially interesting. Ninth grade introduced algebra (with a few polynomials), while later grades were said to introduce trigonometry and then geometry. Waiting a few years to get a better view of conic sections seemed too long to wait, so I began working ahead of the assigned schoolwork, borrowing the textbooks for the later years, and reading those outside the school hours. I did this outside because I had gotten into trouble by reading ahead in earlier grades.
In a few months, I had completed reading (and doing problems) for the algebra and trigonometry books which I borrowed. For some reason, a geometry book for the school course was not available, but I was able to borrow a book on solid geometry. I did not master that, but was able to make some progress on conic sections.
All of this was in my mind when I found that there would be a science fair. I made my exploration and self-learning the basis for a project on computing the eccentricity of an ellipse. At that time, my high school had little to do with science fairs, so it was easy to go to the next level (the county science fair). Likewise, the county science fair had little competition. Anyone who placed first in those fairs was qualified to go to the next level of the science fairs. As a result, I was able to go to the area science fair on my first try. Oddly enough, my project took a first place in its area (junior high school, mathematics).
In the following years, I worked on other projects and each time went to the area science fair, but did not get first place on those:
electrophoresis of slime molds
Pascal's pyramid
a wind tunnel
The first of those was with guidance from the biology teacher, Mr. Grier. The second was based on reading Martin Gardner's books. But the third was just an idea. I created three projects as a senior, and placed first in the county science fair for each of those. At this point, Mr. Manspeaker from the Board of Education told me that I would only be allowed to take one to the area science fair, to give other people a chance. As I recall it, my other two projects were in topology and multidimensional tic-tac-toe. Because I did not anticipate placing first in the area fair for any of these, I chose the wind tunnel because it had the most impressive display (and did not require me to stand by it and explain). Science fairs are great social events, and I took advantage of that by playing lots of games of chess and going to the university bookstore.
After racing through the high school mathematics textbooks, the courses in the following years were even more boring than anticipated. The geometry course in eleventh grade was limited to plane geometry, with very little reuse of the trigonometry introduced in the previous year. For the senior year, the course offered was entitled Advanced Academic Math, but it was anything but that. Most of the course dealt with logarithms. Its counterpart (learning to use a slide rule) was covered in physics, but the physics course covered more topics. In other schools, the term “advanced” would refer to calculus; the textbook I used did not mention calculus.
I asked the guidance counselor, Mrs. Litzinger, if I could just take the exam and get credit for the course. She said it was up to the teacher. In turn, Mrs. Stalcup said no, and that it would do me good to take the course. However...
The textbook (and teacher) were well-worn from previous years of the same topic, and I found that I could start on the assigned problems at the beginning of each class and have the solved problems ready to submit by the time the assignment was made.
In the the third quarter, the teacher left “advanced” entirely and spent the time on how to fill out tax returns. I boycotted those assignments, but was still able to get an A for the year.
In other courses, my progress was more conventional. The day's schedule allowed up to six courses. There were history (e.g., social studies, U.S. history, civics), science (biology, chemistry, physics), band (i.e., music), English and the one foreign language offered: French.
I took three years of French, but not the fourth. In my senior year, Mrs. Close (an English teacher) offered a class in English composition. I saw that it would be useful. When I asked to take the composition course, my request was at first denied, with the assistant principal saying that I would have too many courses. That is, I would have six courses, which would be too many. I was told that this was prohibited by the state (not the school), because of a concern that I might not do well.
Because the other courses were required, I was only able to choose between the fourth year of French and English composition. I chose the latter, and still had five courses. For the sixth, I had “study hall” (an hour spent with little to do).
I complained of course, but was told that was the way high school was. I was also told that in college, I could have more flexibility about these things.
That sounded promising, but my going to college was not to be taken for granted. That took money (I had little), and besides, I was uncertain what I should study (a common problem). But I was advised that some money was available from scholarships and other sources.
At that time, I was considering mathematics, physics, or engineering. I sent applications to a half-dozen colleges and universities, and in addition went to a couple of interviews for scholarships. If accepted, those would narrow down the field of study. I was accepted by two: a well-regarded engineering school, and the state university (not as well-regarded). The former allowed for a hefty loan, while grants from the state legislature would pay for the latter. That was not an easy choice. Fortunately, I did not have to choose.
Mrs. Litzinger called me into her office one afternoon to meet someone. He was a recruiter for a college of which I had never heard. I was told to apply there. I did that, and shortly after (and before the time limit on the others had expired) was told that I had been accepted, and that tuition as well as room and board would be paid. I would be studying engineering.
At the outset, the engineering curriculum was two-semesters, with 5-6 courses per semester. The college offered a general engineering curriculum, which had been accredited a few years previously.
As a freshman, I took courses in classical physics, chemistry, integral calculus, English, and an introduction to computers:
In the physics lectures with Joseph Arbuckle, I found it hard to take notes because the lectures proceeded faster than I write. I found that taking notes was not necessary. I just listened, and read the textbook.
The chemistry lectures were less useful than the physics lectures; the same approach worked well. All of the real work was done in the laboratory. I found that taking turns on creating the report with my lab partner did not work well, because he did not understand the calculations, and had adjusted the experimental data to “work” (and Dr. Doolittle, the lab instructor asked me to rectify this).
This lab separated water into hydrogen and oxygen, measuring the amounts and comparing with the expected values.
On examining the report, I saw that he had made a few errors in the calculations (arriving at 7% error), and on correcting those saw that the result would be too far off for the lab to be accepted (more than double the reported error). Going to my lab partner, I asked for the original data. Using that data, I came up with 4% error.
After that, I always did the lab calculations myself, and usually wrote the report. For the engineering senior project, there was some shared effort for the report, but even there, I did the calculations.
The calculus course met right after lunch, which is not a good time. The instructor (Roy Dohner) kept attendance. I cut that class four times. Although I cut many classes in later years, those were the only cuts recorded.
English was more to the point: few lectures, learning by doing. In the first semester, Merv Lowe assigned compositions to be written. In the second semester, Larry Kelly assigned a research report. Both were good practice after my high school composition.
Nathaniel Kornfield gave the lectures for the computer course. The lectures are forgotten, but the lab work (as in chemistry) was where we learned. The college's IBM 1620 Model I, with 12k of BCD (binary-coded decimal) memory, a card reader and a card punch was the laboratory. The manual for that computer presented Fortran with Formatting (i.e., Fortran II).
In the middle of the year, the college bought the IBM 1620 Model II for $17,000 from a neighboring college which was upgrading to an IBM 1130. The Model II had 20k of BCD memory and a 1-megabyte disk pack. This was good news to Craig Deshong and Larry Tessler, two engineering students whose senior project involved getting ECAP to run on the IBM 1620 (with 17 boxes of cards), and wanted to get ECAP-II.
At the same time, another student (Bill Burch) told me that Kornfield would be teaching a course in numerical methods. I signed up for that, too. This was in addition to the regular course load. My programs were not so ambitious as the seniors, and after exploring Newton Rhapson and Runge Kutta, I created a three-dimensional tic-tac-toe program.
The second semester's engineering course used the text Introduction to Dynamic Systems (Shearer, Murphy & Richardson). At the time, Art Murphy was the head of my engineering school. It did not use a computer. But Art Murphy noticed some of my programming experiments (generating new words by combining syllables, designing a new game), and gave me a key to the room with a teletype connected to the University City Science Center. There were no manuals or other guidance, but I did find a use for the teletype while working on my senior project.
Rather than the teletype, etc., it was the followup course with the IBM 1620 which led to the next step. That spring, Bill Burch told me that there was an additional course for applied mathematics in the upcoming fall semester which I might be interested in.
I signed up for the applied mathematics course.
By the time the fall semester arrived, there were some changes. When I came back to college, I heard that they were switching from a two-semester schedule to something called 4-1-4:
Rather than 5-6 courses to be completed in each (roughly) four-month semester, the new arrangement would trim down the fall and spring terms a little to leave January as a time for special projects.
Because the fall/spring terms were shorter, there would be only 4 courses.
The impact of this on the engineering curriculum was as yet unclear.
At the same time, the food service contract (for boarding students such as myself) had been switched from Canteen to Morrison.
On beginning the applied mathematics course led by Mary Wolfe, I found immediately that
it was a junior-level course (i.e., third year), and
I was taking its prerequisite (differential calculus) at the same time, but
this was not a problem with the instructor, provided that I kept up.
It was too soon to give up, so I began “cramming” the differential calculus course, to catch up. The differential calculus course had a syllabus of problems to work on in preparation for the quizzes and examination. I proceeded through that list, working on each problem. I encountered one (the volume of an odd shape) which I was not able to solve, and asked the instructor, Dorothy Wolfe, for advice. She also was unable to solve it, and took it off the syllabus.
Because I lived on campus during the term, I spent a lot of time in the science & engineering building. A few of the AFIT students were working to set up a PDP-11 computer for Raymond Jefferis. While I was talking to them one afternoon, Robert Gioggia (the instructor for the modern physics course) joined the conversation. He commented to me that Dorothy Wolfe did not understand why I bothered going to class, because I was working on problems far ahead of the course.
That made me stop and think. I realized that I did not need the lectures. The next day, I stopped at Dorothy Wolfe's office, to ask if it was all right to just take the quizzes and the examination. She agreed readily enough.
Later, Robert Gioggia found that I had taken his advice, and was horrified.
We used the textbook Mathematics of Physics and Modern Engineering by Sokolnikoff & Redheffer in the applied mathematics course, focusing on infinite series and a few instances of partial differential equations such as the vibrating string.
I was able to complete both semesters of the differential calculus course that fall, as well as the applied mathematics course, getting an A in each. The second semester of the applied mathematics course proceeded in a more conventional manner.
That left me in the middle of my sophomore year of college considering how to manage my time effectively. There was also the recurring problem of January, but I will return to that.
I discussed this with my advisor, David Chen. He reminded me that my course of study required that I take some electives. Those are courses not specifically required for graduation which are supposed to help one become more rounded.
I wanted to continue taking French, so that I could become proficient enough to read Moliere in the original. But when I suggested that I take French, Chen told me that I could not use that as an elective because the course included a lab. Perhaps someone more determined would have found a way to get a waiver, but reflecting that I was very busy with engineering courses as well as taking all of the available mathematics courses it seemed too much trouble.
But another thought occurred. I had read that the college had recently instituted pass/fail grades. Those were limited to one per term, available only to students with a 3.0 (no problem for me). I asked if the rules would allow me to take electives pass/fail. Because I would only be taking them to satisfy the curriculum requirement, I did not care to invest a lot of time in them. He agreed that I could do that.
The first elective which I took pass/fail was “logic” whose title sounded as if it might be relevant to my engineering work. I envisioned something like a survey of techniques such as the Quine-McCluskey method, or Karnaugh maps. I was misled by the course title, and see that the course catalog showed this was overoptimistic:
Phil. 105 INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC Semester hours 4 A consideration of the forms of valid reasoning and argument with practice in detection of fallacies, including a survey of methods of deductive and inductive reasoning. Examination of the concepts of validity and consistency, factual support and probability with special emphasis on methods of verification and proof in various sciences and in daily life.
Taking a course pass/fail is inefficient if it is necessary to go to the lectures. I visited the instructor, Frans Van Der Bogert, and said that I was interested in taking his course pass/fail, and that I wanted to know if it would be okay to just take the exam to get credit for the course. He agreed readily.
After getting the textbook for the course (Introduction to Logic by Copi), I was disappointed because it was focused on terminology such as taking a dilemma by the horns. I could see that it would be a matter of memorization rather than actual learning, but I digested the book and passed the exam.
By the end of my sophomore year, I was taking twice as many courses as the nominal “4-1-4” curriculum. Going into my junior year, I registered for the same number of courses (eight). Doing this required permission from the registrar, which my new advisor (Joseph Jastrzemski) obtained.
The courses suitable for my pass/fail electives made a short list. Those that would require writing a research paper were not useful.
This course met my criteria during my junior year:
Soc.Sci. 113 INTRODUCTORY GEOGRAPHY Semester hours 4 Deals primarily with basic concepts of geography to include the development of geographic thought and its modern viewpoints and methods. Familiarity with important global features and locations is stressed. Topics include atmosphere and oceans; climate, soild and vegetation landforms.
The course met twice a week. The instructor, Henry Ebrey, gave a quiz once a week. I prepared for the course by spending a half hour before the quiz to read the material which was covered. That was invariably from the textbook (Regional Geography of the World, by Wheeler, Kostbade and Thoman).
Ebrey encountered me on other business in the academic center, and asked why I was taking his course pass/fail, saying that I could easily get a B (which was the case with another engineering student who I knew in the class). I responded that I would only take it for a grade if I were certain of getting an A. (I did not mention that a “B” would have lowered my GPA.)
I passed both fall- and spring-terms for this course.
The engineering courses in my sophomore year (fluid dynamics, dynamics of moving bodies, and mechanics of deformable bodies) required a lot of attention (though I did cut some of those, which led to an extra project for Swope to compute bubble formation). That was not the case with the courses in the junior year.
Thermodynamics was mainly concerned with calculations for Carnot cycles, especially for pressurized steam. The instructor assigned problems to be solved and graded, which he expected to be accurate to 5 significant digits. The textbook (Fundamentals of Classical Thermodynamics by Van Wylen and Sonntag) had steam tables (with 5 digits), from which results could be interpolated. This all took place a few years before the introduction of the pocket calculator. The instructor obviously assumed that we would get the extra precision using pencil and paper.
At the time, I was taking more than one mathematics class. Dorothy Wolfe and Hyman Kamal each gave courses, which were fairly easy. But the ones taught by Francisco Navarro were not. At some point during my junior year, I realized that I was spending three days a week working on the problems he assigned, and using three days a week on the other seven courses.
As a result, I was busy with Navarro's assignments, and thought it a bad idea to submit the results from my slide rule, and viewed the pencil and paper route to be a waste of time. Bruce Fitzgerald (second in the class after me) needed help in seeing how to do the calculations. He had a shelf full of Schaum's Outlines, which give particular solutions, but are not useful for discerning patterns. In discussing the tradeoffs (I was also reluctant to create a computer program to do the assignments) Bruce mentioned the Friden calculator in the computer room. We made an arrangement where I would explain the method for calculating the results, and he would carry out the calculations in the computer center, using the calculator.
I cut almost all of the lectures in the materials science class. There were two instructors: Helmut Naumann (lecturer) and David Chen (homework and examinations). There was a textbook for the course (Materials Science for Engineers by Van Vlack), but Naumann did not use that book. Instead, Naumann read from his own book. The classrooms included a desk at which the instructor could sit while discussing assignments with the class. Naumann stood rather than sat, looking down at his book which lay open on the desk.
In previous years, Naumann's book had been the required textbook. But there had been some dissatisfaction from students, and a new textbook was chosen.
Naumann's book was no longer available in the college bookstore, and his lectures were unrelated to the course assignments. Because I had a better use for the time (Navarro's assignments), I cut the lectures entirely.
I went to David Chen's sessions, because those assigned work to be completed, and there were quizzes and examinations. Chen and Naumann discussed my absence, and Chen told me that Naumann would like me to make a presentation in (Chen's) class using material which Naumann provided.
The material was a collection of copies of journal and news articles on the proper disposal of plastic waste, e.g., boxes, bags, etc. There were two schools of thought on this (early 1972):
burn the waste, to generate heat (the industry view), or
recycle the plastic waste to make new products (the alternate view).
My classmates understood after my presentation that the latter was the better choice.
In my senior year, those eight courses piled up higher than before. Navarro's course still took three days per week, and the senior project took a lot of time. Both of those took more time than the course hours would suggest.
I cut lectures of my communications theory course (Information Transmission, Modulation, and Noise, by Mischa Schwartz) to save time. Because the lecturer was my advisor, Jastrzemski, he knew that I would do well. As in the Thermodynamics course, I made an arrangement with other students, to ensure that I would get the labwork done, and write the report. In exchange, I wanted to read their lecture notes. Because I was going to do the calculations anyway, that arrangement was mostly for my benefit.
Their notes did not help, because they did not read the textbook, and did not make notes focused on the issues discussed in class which were not in the book. As a result, on each quiz I missed the points for those class-only issues.
I got an A anyway.
As an engineering student, I had lab courses (no theory, no lectures, just problems to solve) each semester in the sophomore and junior years. Those assignments generally took three weeks, and were just for practice (and learning how to work in teams). With the curriculum change to 4-1-4, that put extra attention on the use of January for an in-depth project.
These January programs were all pass/fail, according to the curriculum.
In the first January program, I developed a computer program for the numerical inversion of Laplace transforms. This was suggested by Mary Wolfe, based on work by Richard Bellman, possibly this:
Numerical inversion of the Laplace transform,
Bellman, Richard Ernest, Robert E. Kalaba, and Bernard Shiffman,
Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1963.
Laplace transforms are easily converted from a differential equation, and can be manipulated as an algebraic expression. However, converting back to a differential equation is not so simple. If the expression does not match some known conversion from a differential equation, converting back requires work. Bellman et al described a way to compute this inversion.
I spent most of that January working on the program. By the way, the food contract did not cover that month, but I was able to get by, with the A&P a mile away.
At the very end of January, my room-mate organized a trip to Florida to watch the Apollo 14 launch on the 31st (Sunday). We got there at least a day before, and went on the tour, so that meant that my January program ended on the Thursday before.
The following January program (in my junior year) also dealt with Richard Bellman. Raymond Jefferis suggested that Bellman's Dynamic Programming could be used to solve systems of linear equations, e.g., by finding a matrix's inverse.
That was less successful than the previous year (a lot of “hill-climbing” without getting to the goal), but the food contract covered that month.
The third (and last) January program was spent on my senior project (a requirement of the engineering degree).
Engr. 404,402 ENGINEERING PROJECTS Semester hours 4
An internship activity in which the student undertakes a realistic and
complete engineering project. These projects are generally unsolved
problems, from current technology and include creative conception, design,
development, construction and evaluation. Projects involve both analytical
and laboratory experience in which students work in small groups in
association with a faculty adviser. The Engineering project is completed
during January of the senior year. A written and oral report follows the
completion of the project.
Prerequisite: Senior standing.
Some of that is inaccurate, leftover from the two-semester arrangement. We made no oral report, and our interaction with our advisor was minimal.
As before, I spent the time working on a computer program, but had to keep in mind that we had to write the report at the end. That gave me a deadline about a week before the month ended.
I worked on the project with Michael Rowles and Bruce Fitzgerald, because (as we agreed about a year earlier) that we wanted partners that we could rely upon. We worked together in the lab course that spring (though not always group reports).
Our project dealt with a problem outlined by Jim Hazard at Scott Paper's R&D facility: how to cut very wide paper webs which are continuing to advance as the paper is manufactured. We proposed a system with fans to buffer the paper momentarily while it is being cut. That is what Jim Hazard said that he came up with as well.
Michael and Bruce built a working model to demonstrate the idea. I developed a computer program to simulate the system, and allow some exploration of the tradeoffs. This type of system cannot be solved but a numeric model can give insight.
Near the end of the month, on the weekend, Michael and I used the college newspaper's typewriters and mimeograph machine to write the report and print several copies of it. That was about a hundred pages, which may seem a lot for a pass/fail course.
I did not take all of my electives pass/fail. First of all, I was limited to one at a time, and secondly it would be pointless to take a useful course pass/fail.
During my junior year, while I was taking introductory geography pass/fail, I took the statistics course offered by the economics department—for a grade. The instructor was Philip DeMoss.
This was an introductory course, covering topics such as variance, standard deviation, T-test, etc. DeMoss assigned problems to work out, but since he did not collect papers, there was no reason to write anything for those.
At the beginning of the fall semester, I had other things to work on. The engineering problems lab assigned my group the task of measuring the force from a solenoid. That is an electromagnet, constructed from a wire wound around an iron core. The more winds, the stronger the magnet. At the start, I had no magnet, but was able to get a spool of slightly-used bell wire to make my own. I had four lab partners that semester, who usually could not be found. For practical purposes, I was on my own when doing the labs.
For the next couple of weeks, I took that wire along with me, winding and counting. This helped to pass the time in the classes where I did not have to pay attention, such as statistics.
Since I sat at the back of the room, I thought that I was inconspicuous. The wire did make a slight rattling sound, but was not disturbing other students. But DeMoss was disturbed. I looked up to see that he had crept up to me, and on my looking up, he pointed and asked “What's that?” and (startled) I responded just “wire” which the class found amusing.
After that, DeMoss made a point of calling on me to give answers. Fortunately, the statistics course had no difficult calculations. On one occasion, it was simply this (rephrased): what is the square root of 2.6? For anyone used to computers, that is trivial, since one observes that 2.6 is a little larger than 2.56, and 2.56 is the square of 1.6, and then adjust it up a little to respond thus: 1.6 ... uh 1.61 to see by the expression on DeMoss's face that this was supposed to be a difficult calculation (pre-calculator, of course).
In spite of these interactions, I sensed that DeMoss had some antipathy toward other engineering students without the benefit of a similar introduction. I asked some of the students who might know, and one related a story that he had heard about a quarrel between the engineering and economics departments regarding who would teach a course called Engineering Economics, and that the economics department had lost the dispute. Consulting the college's course catalog, I see that it was offered for more than one year, and was not offered after DeMoss left the college (at the end of my junior year). He went to a nearby college which has no engineering program (rather, it is a place where secondary school teachers are trained). The course catalog entry was as follows:
Engr. 411. ENGINEERING ECONOMICS Semester hours 3
Classical economics with emphasis on mathematical analysis; involves
interest, depreciation, minimum cost topics. Industrial processing
systems are reduced to flow diagrams and the appropriate system equations;
this analysis includes the definition and use of sinks, sources, decision
functions, flows, levels and delays in corporate systems. The optimization
of economic systems and sub-systems is covered; specific examples are
covered in order to illustrate the solution of linear system economic
models.
Prerequisite: Senior standing.
As I recall it (from reading class assignments), Francis Chambers was the instructor for that course. He remained at that college for several more years. But DeMoss left, having been there only two years.
Armed with that insight (but not knowing the denouement), I continued in the course. At the end of the course, DeMoss contrived to have his examination at the same time as the Thermodynamics course's examination. This allowed him to (as he said) give us engineering students a harder exam. I did well on the exam and got an A, but then he made a point of telling me that I got the lowest A.
I took mathematics courses with Francisco Navarro in both junior and senior years. There was a textbook assigned for the junior year, i.e., Abstract Algebra, which he ignored. However, from pace of the course, I perceived the title as Instant Algebra. Navarro was soft-spoken, but rapid.
During my junior year, Navarro's class met in the same room as Mary Wolfe's applied mathematics class had met; this had only two or three rows of seats by perhaps ten wide. Like the class with Naumann, there was a desk at which an instructor might sit. Navarro (like Naumann) never sat, but unlike Naumann would talk to us rather than at us. That class met right after lunch, and as one might guess from the above, Navarro would become dissatisfied with inattentive students. On one occasion, as he continued to talk, Navarro reached down, picked up the chair from behind the desk and gently tossed it at me. I caught the chair, considered a moment, and put it down on the other side, out of his reach.
I got an A in that course.
On my lunch break over the summer, I read (and worked on the problems) in Silverman's Introductory Complex Analysis in lieu of this course which was not offered although it was in the catalog:
Math. 443,444 COMPLEX ANALYSIS I, II Semester hours 8
This is a course in analytic functions of one variable. It includes the
study of Cauchy's integral, Laurent expansions, residues, conformal
representation and analytic continuation.
Prerequisite: Math. 342. Math 443 is prerequisite for Math. 444.
There were only a few mathematics majors (three aside from me) going into their senior year. The course may have been offered the following year when there were more students.
Navarro's next course (algebra), in the fall of my senior year, was equally abstract, and had no recommended textbook. I found this course more difficult:
The course met twice a week, from 4:00pm to 5:30pm (dinner time).
Navarro was writing a book.
We were forbidden to take notes.
Assignments were based on the chapters as he wrote them.
I had seven other courses, including my engineering senior project (which was expected to take half my time).
Not that I considered it, but Navarro advised the class at the outset: six cuts and you're out.
In that class, I sat at the back of the room. There were no incidents with chairs. Other students had some issues:
One (not part of the class) came into the class to argue with Navarro about a grade. That person was intent on graduating in three years, which was not profitable for the college.
Another dropped the class, and Navarro said that they had complained to their advisor that they were being persecuted.
In this mathematics class, I got my only B (which I attributed to fatigue).
Coming into my senior year, it occurred to me to wonder if I would be able to graduate with a second major, in mathematics. Although I had taken all of the available mathematics courses, neither of my advisors (Chen and Jastrzemski) had discussed this with me. As advisors, they did nothing more than sign off on requests to the registrar to approve my taking the courses.
Rather than my (passive) advisors, I discussed this with other students, e.g., Rich McGowan (a junior mathematics student). He said that I should ask Dr. Storlazzi (the head of the science department). The mathematics department was only a small group within the science department, acting as a service department to the larger groups of engineering and an amalgam of physics, chemistry and biology students. Because of that, there were no full professors of mathematics. Eric Temple Bell may have had something like that in mind:
I set out to find Storlazzi on a Friday afternoon just before registration for the fall term. Storlazzi was not inclined to discuss the matter, so I followed him down the hall. While answering my question about what were the degree requirements, he was already running down the stairs. His answer was
You need Western Civilization. Don't waste your time. Other people have tried.
Returning to Rich McGowan, I asked about this item in the course catalog:
HISTORY Professor Sophocles, Associate Professors Allen and Jenkins, Assistant Professor Buck, Instructors Bilinski and Skaggs, Adjust Professor Strawbridge Hist. 101 IDEAS AND MEN, A CULTURAL HISTORY Semester hours 4 Select themes in man's historical development from classical antiquity to the Enlightenment. A humanistic analysis of the traditional and popular elements of man's social behavior. Hist. 102 IDEAS AND MEN, A CULTURAL HISTORY Semester hours 4 A historical perspective of major themes since the 18th Century and their relevance to contemporary crises.
Rich said that was the same thing. He had taken the course as a freshman, and offered to lend me his textbooks for the course because he did not need them any more. Rich also asked if I had thought about getting credit for it with a CLEP test. I had never heard about that before; Rich explained that it was some tests that incoming freshmen could take to get credit for a course (like the AP advanced placement tests).
Between Rich's advice and a followup conversation with Joseph Arbuckle (who besides being a physics instructor, was the college's academic dean), I found that it was a possibility, because my college had begun accepting CLEP tests for the first time that fall. CLEP tests could only be used for pass/fail courses, and although Western Civilization was required for the degree, it was all right to use a CLEP test for it.
I registered for the test, which was to be given October 20. At the same time (since I had now resolved to get the second degree) I registered for the course itself, just in case the test went awry. There was a problem with that: due to my other seven courses (and taking into account those which I did not plan to cut), it was not possible to be in the class — during the daytime. It happened that the night school (which was a separate entity) offered the course. Consulting with Arbuckle, it was possible for me to register in that course (pass/fail, of course), and provide for that contingency. Because the CLEP test results would surely be available before the end of the drop-and-add interval (the day before Thanksgiving), I would continue in the course only if the CLEP test results were unsatisfactory.
As I write this, I have reread the college's handbook, and see that a passing CLEP test result was equivalent to a C.
The night school course was a lecture, by John Bilinski. It met on Friday evenings, and had a weekly bluebook exam. Those were all essay questions, so there was a lot of leeway in grading. In the first three, my exam result was an A.
Because (unlike the other students in the class), I was a boarding student, I was not in as great a hurry to leave after class as the others. In addition, I encountered him during the day. As a result, I talked to Bilinski a few times. After one of the Friday evening lectures, I mentioned to him that I was taking his course pass/fail. Bilinski did not reply; he had a faraway look in his eyes as if he did not see me.
The following week, my exam came back with a D. All of the remaining weeks yielded the same result.
I could see that a problem had arisen, but in the meantime, I had seven other courses to keep up with, as well as preparing for the CLEP test. I prepared for the test by reading the books which Rich McGowan had lent me. There were two, each had 800 pages. It took me 19 hours to read them through—once. After completing that, I skimmed through the books to review (another few hours, e.g., likely on the morning of the test).
To allocate time for reading the books, I cut one lecture a couple of days before. That was Nick Damaskos's operations research course (a graduate course). I told him that I was going to do that, and why. Damaskos said that was like borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. I responded that I would pay Peter back, with interest.
Swope also was unhappy, for a different reason. He wanted to know which of the three of us (I, Bruce or Michael) would attend the national Tau Beta Pi convention. That year, it was October 19-21.
As background to this, we three were the top 10% of the engineering class, and had been inducted into Tau Beta Pi in our junior year. That included electing officers: president, vice president and treasurer. The meeting for electing officers was secret (no faculty), however Swope and Groesberg had given broad hints about their expectations.
When we were meeting, I stated that we should elect Bruce president, otherwise we would be accused of bias. It is odd how that works. Michael and Bruce agreed, and Michael had no objection to being vice president.
Six months later, there was a different story to tell. I asked them separately, on behalf of Swope, if they would go to the convention. Bruce told me that he was not going, because he had a wrestling match. Michael told me that he wanted to go home that weekend.
As a result (I thought my reason was valid), I came back to tell Swope that no one was going.
Swope responded with a comment about “immoral behavior” and we did not discuss it further.
The CLEP test was fairly routine, and I began waiting for the results.
The deadline for the drop-and-add came and went. Discussing this with Arbuckle, he was a little embarrassed to report that since that was the first time they had given the test, and on sending the paperwork to the testing organization had done this in more than one envelope (with the reason that there were three types of forms to fill out). That had apparently caused a delay in the testing organization.
The fall term ended just before Christmas, without the CLEP test results.
I received my copy of the test results on December 26. My score put me in the top third of one percent (99.67%). I assumed that was good enough to pass.
That week, I also received my report card for the fall term. The grade for Bilinski's course was a D, which the night school had sent over without accounting for my pass/fail registration. That dropped my cumulative average by more than a half-point. You might not think that a single grade could do that, but another student (Robert Blakely) had told me about his own experience in handing in an English paper late because he was ill. A D resulted.
After returning to campus in January, I went to Arbuckle's office in the academic center to show him my CLEP test results. He read it, then scribbled a note on a piece of paper, saying
Take this to the registrar's office, and she'll get that taken off your record.
I went there, dutifully (not even reading the note), wondering what sort of forms had to be filled out to do this.
The registrar (Jayne Bacon), took the note and while I watched, did the removal. There was an array of shelves along the wall behind the counter. Those contained folders (apparently one for each student). She found my folder, which contained something looked like the report card, except that it was a sheet of some transparent plastic with black lettering stuck to a manilla folder. The registrar rapidly produced (or found) a replacement for this plastic sheet and proceeded to rip the sheet from its backing, and toss that in a waste basket. Then she applied the replacement to the backing.
Taking something off my record was more thorough than I had imagined. That plastic sheet would be used for producing transcripts of my record. Finding my voice, I asked
Does this mean that there is no record of my having taken that course?
to which she replied cheerfully,
That's right!!!
I saw clearly what I must do next. I returned to the academic center, where John Bilinski also had an office. When I entered the room, he stood, perhaps 15-20 feet away. I said
I took a CLEP test for Western Civilization, and passed it.
Your course has been taken off my record.
He said nothing, but his face grew red with anger. I left.
The CLEP test gave me both semesters of that course. I was done with pass/fail courses at that moment, and later that year received two diplomas at graduation.
John Bilinski was at that college since late 1965, but was not listed in its faculty for fall 1973 or later. Unlike DeMoss, he apparently left teaching, finding employment in the bureaucracy of the Department of Education.
For reference, here is a snippet of the calendar for these events, with the relevant dates marked:
1972
July August September
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 1 2 3 4 5 1 2
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 27 28 29 30 31 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
30 31
October November December
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 1 2
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
22 23 24 25 26 27 28 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
29 30 31 26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31
1973
January February March
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 1 2 3
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
28 29 30 31 25 26 27 28 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Up until this point, my academic career had treated courses and their grades as a type of game. Working within the rules imposed by the college, I was able to graduate with two degrees, though not by planning it out. Because I added courses rather than substituting, I graduated with 175 credits versus the 120 needed for the engineering degree (and a lesser value for the science degree).
Others graduated with more than one degree, though none were in science or engineering. Those (about a half dozen in a class of roughly 360) graduated with combinations of business, behavioral science, political science, or foreign languages. I recall that one student had three of these majors. The number of credits required for these nontechnical majors also was lower than for science or engineering.
In graduate school, things would be more competitive, and after a while it ceased to be a game. As before, on entering college, I had no clear goal. I applied to several graduate schools indicating mathematics or engineering. The latter won out because I had good references from the faculty of the engineering school.