HE EXPECTED A LOT FROM ME

During my sophomore summer I took a BASIC programming course with John Kemeny. I had learned some BASIC in junior high and knew it was practically a dead language, but it was one of the last courses Kemeny was going to teach before he retired. I'd always been in awe of his reputation.

BASIC was more challenging than I thought it would be. Fortunately, Kemeny kept office hours one day a week he felt strongly about office hours and I visited often for advice. In the process, I got to know him better. He always set the same: standards for men and women, and he was proud of women's progress, especially in intellectual pursuits. It meant a lotto me that he had been the president who took Dartmouth coed.

I worked hard in the course and did fairly well. Going into the final I had close to an A average. For this exam, we had to create a checkers program. Unfortunately, I forgot to allow the checkers to go backwards as well as forwards.

I decided to pick up my exam in person, even though I feared I had failed miserably. When I sat down, he said, "Jeanhee, I really expected more from you." Any other professor saying that would have crushed me. But I was thrilled that Kemeny this brilliant man believed I was capable of more than I had expected from myself. I got about a 50 on the exam. But I came away with a promise to myself to set my goals a little higher. It was the start of becoming a more confident person.

Jeanhee Kim, former assistant editor at Working Woman, is a staff reporterfor Money magazine.