Talent is Overrated II
(see January of 2015 for part I) In 1964 toward the end of my sophomore year at Occidental, Dean Culley called me into his office to inform me that my grade point average of 1.2 was nearing a milestone. Benjamin Culley, who despised me, was the Dean of Men and taught a course in statistics. He made no effort to mask the pleasure he took in telling me that without a miraculous reversal it would soon be statistically impossible to raise my GPA to the 2.0 required to graduate. He added that when I reached this point of no return the college would be obligated to drop me as a student. To avoid losing my student deferment and relocating to either Canada or Viet Nam , I began a process of elimination lasting a few months and ending with me listed as an art major. The college's records in those days were mainly printed forms filled out by administrative personnel. My transcript displayed five handwritten entries in the field labeled “Major”, with a line drawn through the firs