Page 15 - MY STORY

appearance in his office. He seemed genuinely concerned

when I explained that I was working in the evening as a
mechanic, and he wondered if a talk with my parents
might be useful. The shock of that possibility reignited

my interest in doing the homework (which had been
poorly accomplished before the interview) and paying
much more attention in class. The light bulb got switched

on, and I aced every test after that interview.

2) Professor Lucio Mondolfo was Italian, with so strong

an accent that class roll call was a serious challenge. One
of his classes involved a weekly visit to a metal

processing facility in the Chicago area which required a
detailed trip report of what we saw and extracted from
those visits. Every report submitted was reviewed
thoroughly and could be selected for open discussion in

class to display the best and worst of those submitted.
Mondolfo was merciless in grading the technical

accuracy, syntax, punctuation and sentence structure.
Many of us were publicly humiliated if our report was
chosen and presented to the class as a poor example of

report writing. There is no question in my mind that this
was one of the most valuable lessons learned that never
left my reporting prowess once in industry.