He moved from Chicago to Schenectady, New York. He worked in public relations for General Electric. His brother Bernard worked in the research department at the same company. While in Schenectady, Vonnegut lived in a tiny village called Alplaus. Vonnegut rented an upstairs apartment across the street from the Alplaus Volunteer Fire Department. He was an active Volunteer Fire-Fighter for a few years. That apartment still has his desk in it. He wrote many of his short stories at that desk carved his name into the bottom of it. The University of Chicago later accepted his novel "Cat's Cradle" as his thesis because they said the story was anthropological. They gave him an M.A. degree in 1971.