Early Years
The elder child of Dale Burdell Ride and Carol Joyce (née Anderson), Sally was born in Encino, California, a district of the city of Los Angeles. She had one sibling, Karen "Bear" Ride, who is a Presbyterian minister. Both parents were elders in the Presbyterian Church. Ride's mother had worked as a volunteer counselor at a women’s correctional facility. Her father had been a political science professor at Santa Monica College.
She attended Portola Junior High (now Portola Middle School), and then Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles (now Harvard-Westlake School) on a scholarship. In addition to being interested in science, she was a nationally ranked tennis player. Ride attended Swarthmore College for three semesters, took physics courses at UCLA, and then entered Stanford University as a junior, graduating with a bachelor's degree in English and physics. At Stanford, she earned a master's degree and a Ph.D. in physics, while doing research in astrophysics and free electron laser physics.
Read more about this topic: Sally Ride
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“The secret of heaven is kept from age to age. No imprudent, no sociable angel ever dropt an early syllable to answer the longings of saints, the fears of mortals. We should have listened on our knees to any favorite, who, by stricter obedience, had brought his thoughts into parallelism with the celestial currents, and could hint to human ears the scenery and circumstance of the newly parted soul.”
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