Changing Majors
Terry Carroll recalls transferring from aerospace engineering to science education and how his experiences serving in the military influenced his decision to change majors.
Interview on 2011-04-22 00:00:00 -0400
Transcript
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I started in aerospace engineering, I'm still very much of an introverted nerd,
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but I love to build, I love to design, I love to make stuff
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except, particularly when I went in the service, and actually a little bit--. I'd already signed up
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but I'd helped several people do some stuff, and I wasn't the most brilliant student.
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Actually I was kind of a jerk my first few years at State.
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I had freedom. I was a farm boy. I'd never--. I didn't where the library was but I knew where the gym and the student union were. [laughter]
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I knew those well, but I didn't learn where the library was until my junior year.
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I'm being a bit facetious.
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So the reason I was sharing all that with you is that I had helped several people get some studies
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and somehow they were all just like, wow, okay?
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Well then when I went into service, which I was still kind of in the aerospace mode but really thinking about going to become a teacher,
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I really--. I'm almost afraid to say this on video,
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video, but I kind of got a shift from better people from better bombs, okay.
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hat I saw--. And I had a lot of people that--. I had some phenomenal officers that were over me and I mean they were incredible,
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but they were very big on me coming back and teaching.
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They knew my background
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and of course that was not what I was doing in service or anything else but I was working with these people,
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so basically there was this desire that we never make this mistake again
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and I heard that from more than one officer, and it's like, you need to go back and teach high school.
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So I already had a foot in that door before I left so when I went back I made if final,
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but I stayed in physics which has always been my first love. It was the hardest one for me. [laughter]
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I made worse grades in physics than any of the other sciences.
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It was my favorite. So it was like, okay, well you can teach school
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and then you can do your physics, so you got your science but you're still doing your teaching.
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So life kind of started there
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and it stayed on that track and every time I tried to get off the train it didn't let me,
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until about a year and a half ago when I retired.
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So that was the big change and I think the war and service and all that
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really had a big influence on my decision.
This video is an excerpt from a longer interview. Contact the Special Collections Research Center to request the transcript of the full interview.