Music was always present at the Hogg household, and Ima began learning to play the piano at age three. Although her younger brothers attended public school, Ima was enrolled at a private school and received private music lessons. In 1899, she entered the University of Texas at Austin (UT), where her favorite courses were German, Old English, and psychology. She later remarked that "No freshman was ever more immature, more unprepared, more frightened than I." She joined the female social club known as the Valentine Club, and helped to inaugurate the first sorority on the UT campus, Pi Beta Phi. After two years at the university, she moved to New York City to study piano and music theory at the National Conservatory of Music. Although she was not on campus when the Pi Beta Phi chapter was installed in 1902, she became an alumna initiate in 1912 and a year later served as Vice President of the Houston Pi Beta Phi Alumnae Club.