Minerva Tantoco '81

“I was definitely an overachiever, or maybe ‘was’ is the wrong word–I’m still going strong. It’s a funny thing to say in City Hall […] I knew that I never wanted to learn how to type, because I would end up in some sort of secretarial or clerical job. So I purposely took metal shop, which probably changed my life. First of all, I learned how to solder, which meant that when I later went to Silicon Valley I knew how to solder circuit boards […] At the time it didn’t stick me as particularly useful, but later I realized that was really valuable.”