One of my degrees was a science degree in biology.

Empress of the Universe would be way too much work. I'd have to wear fancy clothes, probably including lady shoes with pointed toes, and could no longer slouch into the study in PJs and slippers. Someone would (avert!) straighten my desk. Someone would reorganize my yarn stash...in fact, they'd assign someone else to knit my socks, thus depriving me of an excuse to rest my brain while pretending to accomplish something useful.

When I was starting out, I did not do short fiction well, because I kept wanting to write books.

Hard to be a physics major at Rice University if you have flunked calculus.

Having a mother who had been an aeronautical engineer convinced me that more things should be open to women.

One thing nobody can do better than you is be you.

So when I got out of the military, I went back to school in biology, and earned a biology degree at the University of Texas, and then did some graduate work in it.