but those decisions were resulting in me having a great career as an engineer at lawrence livermore national lab. and so the consolation prize to me, i kept trying, because my career was going in a great trajectory. the formula i was using was helping my personal career. and so the consolation was, what's the worst that's going to happen? i'm going to be a great engineer, which isn't too shabby. >> hinojosa: no, not at all. >> on the other hand, this is what i tell the kids, is you have to be careful if you want to be a professional soccer player, professional baseball player, what's the fallback position? my fallback position is i'm an engineer, and i'm going to have a great career as an engineer. they need to have fallback and make sure they get a good education. >> hinojosa: right, but you also basically say if you knew how long it was going to take and what you needed to do and all the studying, you might have walked away. sometimes... do you feel that sometimes young kids, particularly latino kids, kids of color, sometimes close the doors on themselves? although, of course, when they se