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From: hplabs!joanne@hpccc.hp.com (Joanne Petersen)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: women in engineering and science
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Date: 11 Apr 89 23:29:18 GMT
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My parents both encouraged me in math and sciences, though neither one of
them excelled in these subjects (one never got past grade school; the other
ended after high school).  Education was very important to them, regardless
of the specific subject I studied.  I ended up as a studio art major, with a
math minor (!).  They were happy that I graduated from college!

The people who got me interested in mathematics were a teacher in grade 
school (who arranged some special tutoring for me at the local university)
and a teacher in high school who made math FUN.  (One of the reasons I did
not become a math major in college was that theory was not as much fun as
applications!  I hated proving stuff when I'd rather use the formulas!)

I'm not a practicing artist (i.e., don't do it for a living) but neither do
I use my math background these days.  I got an MBA and that's been the most
"practical" of my educational degrees.  :-)