1. the sputnik really woke up people's eyes to the need for science, there were all sorts of specials on TV with little comparable today, I remember an hour long prime time cartoon show explaining the theory of relativity to the masses. My parents did not understand but they had it on because they felt they should and it did affect my sister and myself. A lot of money was being put into schools.
2. By the time I got to college age, almost everyone who wanted it, got a scholarship to state school. You could go to a campus meeting and look around and realize that almost everyone there got there on a state scholarship. My parents did not believe in girls needing an education, but they never put a road block in our way either. They told me if I wanted to live at college, I had to pay for it myself because they were saving to put my younger brothers through college, but expenses at college were so cheap (subsidized), that I did with with a summer job and a part time job at college and, being as it was the 60's and clothes were not important, I did not need anything much in property to compete with others,
3. it was a bit more of an innocent time, Drugs were just making it into the middle class, I had no interest in drugs, by the time my brothers were growing up, they were deep into drugs to the point of not wanting to go to college, just get fancy clothes, drugs and fast cars. I fell in a very small happy time period. Boy,my brothers have lived the hard life they chose without a degree, trying to get factory work which is not easy now.
4. the world was changing quickly, I took a job in a female ghetto called Programming, I could have made twice the salary being a secretary and my parents had no idea why I took the job I did. But boy did it blossom into a well paying career.
5. bad choices in work caused my first 7 jobs to go bankrupt or severely cut down work, In less that 10 years I had 7 jobs and never quit a single one, 4 bankruptcies. I was forced to work for myself and consider my survival above he companies. ha ha so I became an independent consultant. Because so many companies went under, I had a lot of women friends in management to help me set up my own business and to go to when I needed advice.
or in other words lots of good luck and threading the needle in luck. That and I worked very hard and tried to be good at my job.
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