Broken Fact: Fu Ping's Graduate Study at University of New Mexico

The Original Story:
In Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping claimed that she became a graduate student at University of New Mexico after a year of studying English. On Pages 61-62, she wrote:

After completing the English as a foreign language course in a year, I was able to pass the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and enroll as a full-time graduate student at UNM. I knew by then that I didn't want to study literature, but what should I pursue? ... 

Computer programming was a new field of study in the early eighties, and there were almost no women interested in it. I was accepted as a computer science master's student even though I had no prior course work in the subject. Nearly everyone was starting from scratch, just like me, which helped me to keep up.

Then, on Page 66:

Less than one year away from completing my master's degree in computer science, I dropped out of the University of New Mexico.

The Earlier Story:
In Drifting Bottle, she was (perhaps intentionally) vague about the level of computer science program she entered (Page 67):

There is a lot of freedom studying in America, students can make their own choices on changing majors or schools. I originally entered the master's program in the College of Arts of University of New Mexico. But I felt that it is ridiculous to study Chinese literature in America and I wasn't interested in English literature. So I decided to change majors. I went to College of Engineering and found that computer programming is closest to literature. Writing programs is a kind of art, it's logic is close to writing articles. 

I applied for Computer Science and was accepted without much trouble. My adviser gave me a long list of courses I had to make up, most of them in math and physics... 

美国读书很自由，转专业、转学都是学生自己的选择。最初我在新墨西哥大学文学院里读硕士，一方面觉得到美国来读中国文学有点荒唐，另一方面对英国文学又不感兴趣，于是我决定改行。跑到工学院调查一下，发现学计算机软件与文学最接近，编程序是一种艺术，其逻辑思维与写文章差不多。 

去计算机系申请，没费多少周折就被录取了。指导教授给我列了一大堆补修课程，其中主要是数学和物理课。……

The Debunking:
University of New Mexico has now confirmed that Fu Ping enrolled in that school as an undergraduate student. She was never a graduate student there, not to mention close to completing a master's degree.

Her own description above is also consistent with this fact. "Nearly everyone was starting from scratch" obviously applies to an undergraduate major. By the time students enter a graduate school, however new the major is, they should have already had a solid foundation for it.

Fu Ping had little to none math background by her own admission. It would be quite incredible for UNM to accept her as a graduate student in computer science right away.

It's not clear why Fu Ping needed to claim herself as a graduate student at UNM and then dropping out of there to enter UCSD as an undergraduate student of the same major later. It's truly puzzling.