Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–64
my daughter Susan, who went to Wesleyan, in Connecticut. She was an English major there. I
think she got more attention from the faculty than the other kids did. More even than Kerstin,
who was at Harvard—though I think Harvard was a pretty good place. A lot of people ask me
where their kids should go to school, and I say, “You know, it depends on how well they know
what they want to do. If they really want to be a Marine in science or technology, and if they fit
the social environment, Caltech’s a wonderful place. But, you know, places like Harvard and
Princeton and Berkeley and Stanford are great schools. They have lots of social environments.
They have lots of stuff. Kerstin ended up a women’s studies major, and an honors major, at
Harvard. But you wouldn’t have that at most places. I think if they’re not sure what they want
to do, they should try to pick a place that’s just got lots of choices. I’m not against state
universities. I think Berkeley, even with all that’s happened to it in the last couple of years, is
still a great place.
ASPATURIAN: Many state universities are.
TOMBRELLO: Yes. Michigan, for example. I think the University of Texas could easily be in
that category eventually. In some areas, it always has been.
ASPATURIAN: You know, every kid, every undergraduate, who comes to Caltech is brilliant. At
least on paper and probably in cognitive ability, too. Invariably though, 50 percent of them are
going to end up at the bottom half of the class. I think for these young people it must always be
something of a shock to discover that they are not forever going to be number one. How have
you, as a professor and a mentor, dealt with this over the years?
TOMBRELLO: I’ve tried to tell them the following: First, life is not in one dimension. Grades are
just one dimension. When you go to the annual ceremony where they present the Distinguished
Alumni Awards, you notice almost without exception that at most, maybe one of the five or six
being honored were at the top of the class. So many of them say, “You know, I was barely an
average student here.” A few years ago, when I was running the staffing committee for Ed
Stone, we looked at somebody in condensed matter physics named Douglas Osheroff, who’d
been an undergrad here. He’d written a marvelous PhD thesis at Cornell and he was at Bell
Labs. He’s at Stanford now, but he came for a visit when we were trying to recruit him. Ed
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