Sylvia Plath established a brilliant academic record and exhibited talent both as an artist and as a writer, publishing her first short story in Seventeen magazine soon after finishing high school. Her academic and literary successes continued after her admission to Smith College in the fall of 1950. The recipient of several prestigious scholarships, she performed impressively in her college courses and published her works in several national magazines, earning, among other accolades, a summer guest editorship in New York City with Mademoiselle in 1953. Despite her collapse, Plath returned to Smith College, graduating summa cum laude in June of 1955. For the next two years, she studied as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Cambridge. While
