Displaced Students Relaunch Academic Careers Elsewhere
Amy Stein, a 21-year-old civil engineering student from Palm Harbor, Fla., looked forward to her senior year at Tulane University in New Orleans. She had just finished an internship in San Francisco, moved all of her belongings into a small apartment off campus, signed up to take the LSAT for law school in October, and pondered the possibility of working for the Peace Corps.
But on Aug. 27, the morning of her flight from San Francisco back to Florida and the day before she was to return to Tulane, Stein awoke to an uncertain future. Friends began calling to tell her that they were piling into cars and evacuating the city. Worrying only slightly, since hurricane evacuations had never amounted to much except a short vacation for the students, Stein flew back home to wait out the storm. My roommates all got in a car and went to Dallas because thats where the closest one lived, Stein said. Evacuations are often excuses for little road trips every other time theyve turned out to be fun.