Chapter 2 "An Education for Life" Summary and Analysis

Kay Jamison graduates from high school and enrolls at UCLA, to her disappointment. She'd hoped to attend the University of Chicago. All of her friends left for schools such as Stanford, Yale or Harvard. But because her father has lost his job at the Rand Corporation, and because of his increasingly bizarre behavior, the family is financially strapped. Therefore UCLA becomes the best option. Once she starts, she loves the school because of its academic excellence, diversity and its culture of encouraging individual uniqueness. But at the same time, she experiences a worsening of her disease that she still does not fully identify.

When her mood is good, she has boundless energy, great leaps of imagination and ambition. Her schoolwork poses no challenge. But sudden shifts of mood become more obvious...