With more money in my pocket I was able to get a better start at Cal Tech (I had less trouble registering for freshman chemistry than in my earlier matriculation.)
To augment my savings, I took advantage of the new-deal government program that allowed graduate students to hire undergraduates to help them with their dissertations. During the first year I built a novel power supply, with both voltage and current feedback, for James Mac Rae (later a Vice-President of Bell Labs) for use with the equipment used for his dissertation on wave guides (the "microwave" sources available at the time were so low in frequency that the experimental wave guides were sheet metal ducting intended for heating systems.) In my second year I did calculations for William Bollay, later a noted airplane designer, for his dissertation in aeronautics. The latter work was particularly satisfying because, when I reported the time involved, Bollay told me to double it because it would have taken him longer, so I was well paid for the work. During the summer between my two years at Cal Tech, I returned to the Radio Institute as a special teacher.
I found that the junior college and teaching experience had prepared me very well for the work at Cal Tech. I had other students come to me for help and graduated, With Honor, in 1938 (No. 6 in a class with 15 honor students). I had an introduction to special relativity in a course in mathematical physics and wondered why the derivation didn't recognize the distinct difference between motion along the line from the observer and transverse to the line, a distinction that occupied a large part of my thinking in recent years. I was disappointed at the lack of significant undergraduate work in electronics at Cal Tech.
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