Susan Linduist interview: Were you a top student in school?

I was a very good student. I was smart, I guess, and had a very good memory. But I was also, I have to confess, rather lazy. I guess maybe in part also because I didn’t really think seriously in any way about having a career... ...or that I was going to be able to do anything. I remember when I went away to college. My father said “What are you going to do with a college education?” He was a very strong supporter of education in general, but didn’t really see what a higher education was going to do for me as a woman. And as I went away to college there was some kind of idea that maybe I could be a doctor, maybe I could do something interesting, but I wasn’t really sure about it. I went away to college and I always got mostly A's and B's, and I was able to do that without working too hard, I have to admit. I was a rather lazy student. It wasn’t until I got into graduate school in Harvard, where all of a sudden, in order to do well, you had to work. Luckily I found that I did have the capacity to work when I was challenged sufficiently. I really did like learning something new and mastering something new. So I think in graduate school I became a very good student.