Women in Education interview

Last week, my friend Monica interviewed me for the BYU Women's Services blog. Here's an advance look at the edited version. It's a little raw, that's what blogs are for, right?


This week’s interview is with my good friend Ruth Eldredge, an organ performance graduate student in the School of Music. Ruth grew up in Colorado, the ninth of ten children. She received her bachelor’s degree in organ performance, and went on to study musicology at Oxford. But for as long as I’ve known Ruth, I never knew that when she started college, she had very different plans for her life! I’ll let her tell the story. The following is a truncated version. You can read the full interview on my blog: (link to full interview also forthcoming.)

MHR: When you first started college, what was your plan, for your education, career, family?

RE: Oh, I had everything planned. Down to the T. I was going to come to BYU, major in linguistics, then go to medical school, because I wanted to run pediatric neuro-surgery clinics in Central America. I figured I’d start learning the languages, and then go to medical school, and spend a lot of time overseas building clinics, maybe even a medical school in Central America. And I had every expectation of being married by the time I was twenty… partly so I wouldn’t have to decide whether to go on a mission!

Anyway, I was going to drive a gold SUV, and be a neurosurgeon. I worked in a doctor’s office my freshman year and I remember driving home and pretending that I was in my SUV—I was actually in this really ugly two-toned truck. So, I was pretending that I was calling my kids on my cell phone and telling them I was on my way to pick them up from school.

MHR: So how did you get from this well-rehearsed plan to majoring in organ performance?

RE: It came on gradually… (for full interview go to LINK)

MHR: How do you feel that your time at Oxford changed you?

RE: I feel like I am responsible for everything I know, everything I’d learned in the past, and
for everything else people expected me to know. Now I understand that while the first two may be true, I also have a responsibility to admit what I don’t know, and keep learning and using the information I get. I feel very responsible for that. I think this is the important part: We have a responsibility for the opportunities we have, for the education we receive, for the wisdom bestowed on us through our life experiences. It would be like learning to drive, and then refusing to drive well. In that way, the whole experience of living abroad and forming an opinion about the world, learning things that I find important, I feel like I have a responsibility to reflect those things in my character and personality, and to contribute those things to my society.

If anything, having had the educational advancement that I’ve had has made me more committed to a domestic life. I love to cook and clean more now than I ever did before I went to graduate school. They are creative processes that are important to life.
More than choosing what we’re going to do, is choosing how we’re going to do what we need to do. And one thing feeds on another. If we do one thing well, we’ll do another thing well. The only thing that’s going to hold you back and really disqualify you is stopping doing things, not thinking or creating. But being creative in one way, facilitates our ability to create in other ways.

If you’re a good student, you’ll be a good mother. You engage the same mental, spiritual, and physical, faculties. And it works in the opposite direction. That’s why there are so many curve-breaking mothers on campus! Have you ever had a class with a 40-year-old mother who’s raised five kids? They get good grades! If you can learn to engage your mind in something, you’ll pick up the skills you need to get a good job, start your business, run a household, anything.

MHR: If you were to give advice to yourself as a freshman, what would you say?

RE: I would say, do not be afraid of anything. It just slows you down. Don’t be afraid that one choice will exclude other choices. Rarely is that the case. Fear takes away the opportunities you’re afraid you won’t get. The only thing that’s going to hold you back and really disqualify you is stopping doing things, not thinking or creating.