Editing Kurt Vonnegut (section)

=== High school and Cornell University ===
[[File:Kurt Vonnegut - High School Yearbook.PNG|thumb|upright|Vonnegut as a teenager, from the [[Shortridge High School]] 1940 yearbook]]
Vonnegut enrolled at [[Shortridge High School]] in Indianapolis in 1936. While there, he played [[clarinet]] in the school band and became a co-editor (along with [[Madelyn Pugh]]) of the Tuesday edition of the school newspaper, ''The Shortridge Echo''. Vonnegut said that his tenure with the ''Echo'' allowed him to write for a large audience—his fellow students—rather than for a teacher, an experience, he said, which was "fun and easy".<ref name="BoomhowerFarrell4-5" /> "It just turned out that I could write better than a lot of other people", Vonnegut observed. "Each person has something he can do easily and can't imagine why everybody else has so much trouble doing it."<ref name="Boomhower" />

After graduating from Shortridge in 1940, Vonnegut enrolled at [[Cornell University]] in [[Ithaca, New York]]. He wanted to study the humanities and had aspirations of becoming an architect like his father, but his father{{efn|Kurt Sr. was embittered by his own lack of work as an architect during the Great Depression and feared a similar fate for his son. He dismissed his son's desired areas of study as "junk jewellery" and persuaded his son against following in his footsteps.<ref name="Farrell5Boomhower" />}} and brother Bernard, an atmospheric scientist, urged him to study a "useful" discipline.<ref name="BoomhowerFarrell4-5">{{harvnb|Boomhower|1999}}; {{harvnb|Farrell|2009|pp=4–5}}.</ref> As a result, Vonnegut majored in [[biochemistry]], but he had little proficiency in the area and was indifferent towards his studies.<ref>{{harvnb|Sumner|2014}}; {{harvnb|Farrell|2009|p=5}}.</ref> As his father had been a member of the [[Delta Upsilon]] fraternity at [[MIT]],<ref>{{harvnb|Shields|2011|p=41}}.</ref> Vonnegut was entitled to join and did so.<ref name="Lowery2007">{{harvnb|Lowery|2007}}.</ref> He overcame stiff competition for a place at the university's independent newspaper, ''[[The Cornell Daily Sun]]'', first serving as a [[staff writer]], then as an editor.<ref name="Farrell5">{{harvnb|Farrell|2009|p=5}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Shields|2011|pp=41–42}}.</ref> By the end of his first year, he was writing a column titled "Innocents Abroad", which reused jokes from other publications. He later penned a piece titled "Well All Right" focusing on [[pacifism]], a cause he strongly supported,<ref name="Boomhower" /> arguing against US intervention in World War&nbsp;II.<ref>{{harvnb|Shields|2011|pp=44–45}}.</ref>