These circumstances forced Kurt into the public school system, where, unlike his privately educated older brother and sister, he was able to form close childhood friendships with working-class students, an experience he says meant the world to him. Sent off to college with his father's instruction to "learn something useful," Vonnegut joined what would have been the class of 1944 at Cornell University as a dual major in biology and chemistry with an eye toward becoming a biochemist. Most of his time, however, was spent writing for and eventually becoming a managing editor of the independent student owned daily newspaper, the
Cornell Sun. World War II interrupted Kurt Vonnegut's education, but for awhile it continued in different form. In 1943, he avoided the inevitable draft by enlisting in the United States Army's Advanced Specialist Training Program, which made him a member of the armed services but allowed him to study mechanical engineering at the Carnegie Technical Institute and the University of Tennessee. In 1944, this one-of-a-kind program was canceled when Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower made an immediate request for 50,000 additional men.
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