Education
He attended primary and secondary schools in British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba, attending R. T. Alderman Junior High and graduating from Calgary's Lord Beaverbrook High School. His post-secondary education began with receiving a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Calgary in 1976, and continued with a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1978, an M.D. from McGill University in 1982, and his M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1998 as a Sloan Fellow. He received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Calgary while on orbit on July 8, 2009. Fellow ISS crewmember Koichi Wakata had the honor of placing the convocation cape on Thirsk, which was later removed due to it constantly floating up to his face. This event made Thirsk the first person ever to receive a university degree from space.
Read more about this topic: Robert Thirsk
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“The fetish of the great university, of expensive colleges for young women, is too often simply a fetish. It is not based on a genuine desire for learning. Education today need not be sought at any great distance. It is largely compounded of two things, of a certain snobbishness on the part of parents, and of escape from home on the part of youth. And to those who must earn quickly it is often sheer waste of time. Very few colleges prepare their students for any special work.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)
“A two-year-old can be taught to curb his aggressions completely if the parents employ strong enough methods, but the achievement of such control at an early age may be bought at a price which few parents today would be willing to pay. The slow education for control demands much more parental time and patience at the beginning, but the child who learns control in this way will be the child who acquires healthy self-discipline later.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“Very likely education does not make very much difference.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)