“When I talk to students - and I still think of myself more than anything as a kind of professor on leave - they say, 'Well, how do I get to do what you do?'... And I say, 'Well, you have to start out by being a failed piano major.' And my point to them is don't try to have a 10-year plan. Find the next thing that interests you and follow that.”

American diplomat and political scientist

Condoleezza Rice is an American diplomat and political scientist. She served as the 66th United States secretary of state from 2005 to 2009, and as the 19th U.S. national security advisor from 2001 to 2005. Since 2020, she has been the 8th director of Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Her public life is rooted in American foreign policy and national security, and her work has centered on those fields.