During her senior year, Barbara Jackson was given the nickname "Efficient". She was given this nickname for a good reason as she balanced a variety of clubs and extracurriculars from dancing to singing all while receiving excellent grades. During her free time, she was often seen playing soccer outside, playing her violin, and composing music. She was always interested in the work of women as she joined the Pleiades club which did a variety of activities for young women. She helped edit her senior yearbook in which she was named "Worst Grind" and that the "the stage was calling".

She continued to play her violin into college where she went to the U of I for music and eventually received her Ph.D. from Standford in musicology with her thesis on the rhythms of and violin bowing in French baroque music. She then taught music at both Arkansas Tech University and at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Barbara stopped teaching and founded the music publisher, ClarNan which focused on 17th and 18th-century women. The company was later sold and Barbara works as an editor specializing in classical women's composition.