Rosalind Elsie Franklin, or The Dark Lady of DNA, excelled in biophysics, biochemistry, and crystallography. Franklin attended several colleges such as Cambridge University, North London Collegiate School, and King’s College. She was born into a Jewish family on July 25, 1920, in Notting Hill, London, England. She was the second of five children. She grew up during the time of the Holocaust, and her family helped to aid other Jews during this time. During this time she learned several languages such as French, Italian, and some German. She was always said to show exceptional intelligence from a young age and by the age of 15, she knew she wanted to be a scientist. She attended many schools throughout her childhood but one highlighted school was St. Paul’s independent girl school. At this school, they focused on preparing girls for schools and was one of the few schools that taught girls physics and chemistry. There, she gained the passion for science and began to pursue her career.
The College Life…show more content… She attended North London Collegiate School where she excelled in science and several other subjects. In 1938, she attended Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied chemistry. In 1941, she was awarded Second Class Honors, which was a bachelor's degree at the time. When receiving this award, she went to R.G.W. Norrish’s lab, where she didn’t have any important discoveries. When asked, she went to the British Coal Utilisation Research Association where she published papers on the structure of coal and studied the porosity of coal until