Early Education
All of the schools that Bill attended for the first 20 years of his life were relatively close to
where he lived on Long Island. His elementary school (PS 154) was about five blocks away
from his home and within walking distance; his high school required him to take a public bus to
the town of Flushing and high school; and his college was Queens College that opened up at just
the right time for him to become a member of the first graduating class. The college was only
about three blocks away from his home.
During the time that Bill went to elementary school, his mother took him and his sister for a
three-month visit to Germany to visit her grandparents. The grand parents lived in a small salt
mining town called Wathlingen (kreis Celle) that was near Hannover. He was about 8 years old
at the time and was eager to try the German school house down the street . Bill's only
remembrance of that town and its school was the strictness of the teacher with the boys in the
class. She would use a wooden ruler to hit the knuckles of the boys who did not behave. The
other remembrance of the trip was the fact that he could not speak English when he returned to
school in Flushing. It took him several weeks to relearn English so that he could speak with his
friends at home and at school. The other result from his elementary school days was that he
skipped two years of his schooling. Therefore, at all of his later schooling he was always about 2
years younger than his peers.
The high school (Flushing High School) that Bill attended in Flushing was so much larger than
his elementary school that he must have felt lost much of the time. His only remembrance of the
high school was the ease with which he sailed through his required German class and the fun he
experienced in his physics class. His other remembrance was the high school song which starts
off with "The red is for courage , the white is for beauty, and all united for FLUSHING". Only
Flushing residents would enjoy those words without cringing. He has never attended a high
school reunion, nor been invited to one , nor wanted to go to one.
Now, college was another story. Bill finally came of age. He has many good memories of the
school, the teachers, and his classmates. The school was unique in that it was a former reform
school for youngsters that needed reforming. A New York City politician by the name of Judge
Golden decided that the campus, buildings, and location were collectively a resource that could
be put to better use. He proposed turning it into a 4 year college. The city bought the concept and
opened the school in September 1937. This was at a time that the country was still in the "Big"
depression. Therefore, it was possible for this New York City college to hire very qualified
teachers at low salaries. The teachers in the physics and math departments were exceptionally
gifted teachers. In the physics department, Bill remembers names like Kirkpatrick, Swenson, and
Thorndike; in math, names such as Primakoff, Abrahams, and Sard. The very fact that he
remembers their names is significant. They must have made a lasting impression on him.
One of his physics professors, Hugo Swenson, had a great influence on Bill and his career. As an
example, Prof Swenson asked Bill to do an experiment on sound under water, in which an
oscillating crystal had to be coated with silver and then made to oscillate under the surface of a
liquid by means of an electronic circuit. The dimensions of the glass container were such that a
standing wave was produced in the container of liquid that permitted one to measure certain
sound characteristics in the liquid. Bill still owns the book that Swenson asked him to use as
reference for his first laboratory experiment in physics. It was Swenson's way of teaching and
guiding students that made his influence important.
Phi Eta Chi fraternity was the small social society that Bill, Ferd Shore, and other classmates
had helped form soon after they arrived at Queens College. The fraternity had no national
affiliations and no lofty goals except good fellowship at the parking lot, between classes and
after school. The boys were all good students and they would help each other stay that way by
tutoring and the like. They enjoyed holding monthly beer parties. The parties were held at the
homes of the members or at a County Park clubhouse. The social life at Queens was quite
limited because the school had only students that lived at home. There were no dormitories on
campus. Bill's parents encouraged him to participate in the fraternity events, to date , and to
drink beer, because they felt that Bill had lived a rather sheltered life at home. Bill even learned
how to dance. The names of Phi Eta Chi members that Bill remembered were: Jack Ritchie,
Arthur Brandoff, James Achtziger, Jack Delaney, Clement Ajello, and Ferd Shore.
At the end of 4 years at Queens College, Fred Shore, also a physics major, and Bill were trying
to decide what their next efforts should be. The alternatives were to go to work in New York
City or go on to more schooling. They both decided that they would not waste much time if they
were to send applications to physics graduate schools for at least one more year of school and
then they could consider working for a living. Prof Swenson helped Bill with his
application to the University of Illinois Physics Department. This was the school and department
at which he had done his graduate work. Soon after the application, Bill was sent an offer for a
teaching assistantship for $1000 per year. Ferd accepted a scholarship at Wesleyan College in
Connecticut. Queens College awarded both Bill and Ferd Bachelor of Science Degrees in
Physics in June 1941. Incidentally, no thought was given to the question of a brewing World War
that might affect any and all plans for the future.
Queens College established for the first time an Alumnus of the Year Award and gave the first
one to Bill Koch in 1960. In 1998, they repeated the honor by awarding him and 99 others the
Alumni Star award.
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