"As I advanced in my professional career and encountered barriers that exist for women... I realized that Radcliffe was very unrealistic," says Hrdy, a professor of anthropology at the University of California at Davis. "It did not prepare me for discrimination against women. Radcliffe spoiled me."

Others felt unprepared for their future lives for different reasons. Elizabeth D. Quinlan '68 says while she enjoyed the education she received at Radcliffe, it was very different from the structured, hierarchical world of the military she entered after graduation--or Operation Desert Storm, during which she served as the chief of orthopedics in a war hospital in Saudi Arabia.

But Quinlan says she enjoyed her term in the military, from which she retired in the spring of 1992 to go into private practice. "I got to sky-dive, fly around in a helicopter and live in Hawaii," she says. "A doctor can't do that--except in the military."

Quinlan says, however, that she has needed to make sacrifices in her life to accommodate her work. "We never had any children, in part so I could participate in a medical career," she says.

Jacqueline R. Weaver '68 chose to balance her life somewhat differently. As a professor at the University of Houston specializing in oil and gas issues, she has had to deal with being seen as an oddity by the men that dominate the Texas oil scene.

She says, though, that her Radcliffe degree and education have helped her move successfully in that professional world.

At the same time, Weaver has managed to maintain a 25-year marriage (to a Harvard Business School graduate) and raise two sons.

Weaver attributes her ability to juggle the different aspects of her life to the flexible hours possible in the life of a professor. "There was always the frantic wonder if the babysitter would show up. I don't know how I had the energy to do things," she says. "I do know the main ways I did it--basically, I worked weekends."

But she adds that this is not the future she envisioned when she picked Radcliffe over Wellesley in order to meet a rich, powerful husband. "Life is unplannable," says Weaver, who originally moved to Texas because of her husband's job there. "If you get a good education, you can't make too many mistakes."

Emily DeHuff '68, however, would most likely disagree with Weaver. DeHuff says she has been able to use her degree to help causes she supports; however, she says her job as a secretary is not what she had hoped for her future.

"My plans were immediately thrown overboard when someone said no, I don't want you to do this," she says. "If I had anything to say to the women who are graduating this year, I would say make serious, practical plans."

DeHuff, who is divorced, says she regrets getting married before graduation. "I just didn't have the conviction of knowing what my real life work was and holding out for it," she says. "I've reached my 25-year mark feeling like I haven't done what I wanted to do."

Other graduates say that they are still continuing on in the interests Radcliffe allowed them to focus on. "The main thing was that we felt we had tremendous freedom and people all concentrated on their passion," says Judith Bruce '68. "I didn't think we were haunted by the bugaboo of being well-rounded."

It was this freedom and flexibility, Bruce says, that allowed her to piece together a curriculum that prepared her for her work on population control with Planned Parenthood and the Population Council, where she coordinates a program of research and policy development on women's roles and status in the developing world.

She often takes her two young daughters along with her on the trips necessitated by her work. "Sometimes it's hard on them and me, but I think on balance we all benefit from it," she says.

Bruce says that she will definitely encourage both of her daughters to consider Harvard-Radcliffe as a college choice one day. "I was having the time of my life and I knew it--I feel very lucky," she says