Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Quotes

My intention was to enroll at McGill University but an unexpected series of events led me to study physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I wasn't tempted to go into academia for a second.

I went to the University of Washington in Seattle. This was a very good place to study, and I learned a lot. But it wasn't the right place for my Ph.D.

My father was a professor of folklore, and my mother was a teacher until she was married. I had a good relationship with them, and the only argument we had was when I went to university and wanted to go into the theater instead of studying to be a lawyer.

In 1990, I was an undergraduate freshman archeology major sneaking over to the English building and unearthing an amazing repository of books I'd never even suspected. By 1998, I'd have my Ph.D.

I wandered along to the chemistry labs, more or less on the rebound, and asked about becoming a research student. It was the '60s, a time of university expansion: the doors were open, and a 2:1 was good enough to get me in.

As an instructor at Alexandria University, I did research that was published in international journals. Although I left to pursue a doctorate in the United States, it was not for want of a good life.

The only school that let me in was U.C. Santa Cruz, which is where I went. They didn't have a journalism program, so I took sociology, which is the closest thing to journalism.

I hadn't planned on going to law school. I wanted to study 19th-century Russian literature.

I always knew I wanted to be a technologist, so I went to Duke and got a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. Really, I thought my goal in life was to be an inventor, a problem solver, so I thought I needed a Ph.D. to be good at inventions, but it turns out that you don't.

I quit college. I was studying architecture for about a year.

When I got to NYU, I immediately inquired about doing a double major in acting and photography.

I wasn't into going to college for four years and that whole dorm thing. I had such an aversion to it. It's an extended vacation, isn't it?

When my father finished his Ph.D., my mother went back for another bachelor's degree, this time in environmental science.

My decision to go to Duke wasn't a surprise to people who really knew me because I was always a Duke fan growing up.

I wanted to go to grad school in philosophy... Nobody was like, 'You should!' You know, they were all like, 'you could?'

I had the offer of places at Leicester and Loughborough to study financial economics.

I have applied to go to either Durham or Loughborough University to study Applied Physics and would like to get some qualification behind me. But when I do think about becoming professional Essex would be my first choice as I have been very happy playing and practising with them.

First I was going to be a football player, then after that try to study medicine or engineering. But it was very difficult to do medicine, so I did engineering.

I was a math and science kid in school, but I ended up going the route of writing and music in college.

I was good at math and science, and it was expected that I would attend the University of Washington in Seattle and become an engineer. But by the time I was seventeen, I was ready to leave home, a decision my parents agreed to support if I could obtain a scholarship. MIT did not grant me one, but the University of Chicago did.

I cannot wait until the day I can go back to school... I've already picked my program: anthropology at Columbia. I will not get in, but a girl can dream.

To me it was fascinating, the idea of going to university and studying a subject - architecture - that I had already faced in building some small houses.

Coming into community college, I wasn't sure of where I wanted to go in my future.

I decided to go back home and try to enroll in the University of Houston.