Most the great unwashed are familiar with the chronicle of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg , who achieved swell winner as the founders of Microsoft and Facebook , respectively , after dropping out of Harvard . Here are nine other former Harvard students who made out just fine without earning their degree .
1. Robert Frost
Frost , a San Francisco native who had previously knock off out of Dartmouth after only two month , was accepted for entree at Harvard in the declivity of 1897 and studied liberal arts in Cambridge . Two years later , Frost , who had married and become a father just prior to inscribe at Harvard , leave schooling to confirm his growing family . “ They could not make a bookman of me here , but they gave it their best , ” Frost later say . Frost win four Pulitzer Prizes for poesy in his life-time and received an honorary degree from Harvard in 1937 .
2. Matt Damon
3. William Randolph Hearst
Hearst , the son of millionaire mining engineer George Hearst , inscribe at Harvard in 1885 and acted as the first business organisation director of theHarvard Lampoon , the school ’s humor publication . It did n’t take long for Hearst , who kept a pet gator name Champagne Charlie in his room , to establish a reputation as a trouble - Divine . According to legend , the next newspaper magnate once buy a jackass and creep the creature into a professor ’s way , leaving a identity card around its neck opening with the note , “ Now there are two of you . ” Hearst survived that stunt , but was by and by expelled for transmit his professors chamber pots with their names enter on the bottom . After leaving Harvard , Hearst launch his successful vocation by take control of one of his father ’s newspaper , theSan Francisco Examiner .
4. Edwin H. Land
5. James B. Connolly
Connolly , who was admitted to Harvard in 1895 despite never graduating high school , left Cambridge to enter in the first Olympic Games one year later . Connolly reportedly quest a farewell of absence seizure from the Harvard dean , but it was denied as a result of his low academic standing . Harvard informed Connolly that he would have to reapply for admission upon his yield from Athens , but he leave anyway , and became the first modern Olympian champion with a win in the triple start . Connolly never returned to Harvard to finish his degree , but he was awarded an honorary Harvard sweater in 1948 .
6. Pete Seeger
As Seeger explains it , the folk singer and activist had his financial aid rescind after his sophomore year because he got too interested in left - flank political sympathies and lease his grades slip . Seeger , who would ’ve calibrate in 1940 , achieved fame after drop out of Harvard as a phallus of The Weavers , whose rendition of Leadbelly ’s “ Goodnight , Irene ” topped the charts for 13 week in 1950 . Seeger does n’t seem to harbor any ill will toward the shoal . As theHarvard Crimsonreported , he drop a line the following in his alumni annual : “ I remember thinking when 1940 came along that I was glad I had spent the two year there , that I had learned certain invaluable thing , but also that I had check in two age that I had been by from sure things that Harvard would n’t have been able-bodied to teach . ”
7. R. Buckminster Fuller
The artificer , philosopher , and futurist was the fifth generation of his kinfolk to enroll at Harvard and the first not to graduate . Fuller was n’t accepted into any of Harvard ’s social clubs , so he sought companionship elsewhere and on a regular basis skipped class to attend Broadway shows . During one such trip to New York City , Fuller treat actress Marilyn Miller and her entire chorus to dinner , blowing all of his tutorship money for that yr in the process . Harvard dismissed Fuller , who go to operate as a manufacturing plant worker in Quebec before his female parent convinced him to reapply . Fuller was readmitted and earned several pedantic honors , but eventually became bored and go out Harvard for good . After a stint in the U.S. Navy , Fuller enter on the first of many commercial-grade failures , including the prefabricate Dymaxion House , before achieving fortune and fame in 1947 with the invention of the geodesic dome . Fuller return to Harvard in 1961 to go for the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry .
8. Bonnie Raitt
9. Elisabeth Shue
At least one celebrated Harvard dropout eventually make up one’s mind to hark back to schoolhouse . Shue , who transferred to Harvard from Wellesley College , overlook out of school one semester short of receive her political scientific discipline level in 1985 to pursue an acting vocation . Fifteen years later , she take back to Cambridge to complete her level . “ My learning ability was starting to dry up , ” Shue toldMovielinemagazine . “ In Hollywood , you ’re fortunate if you get a persona where your mentality is engaged , but those experiences are rare . I felt like I needed to do something with my life . I need to feel more affiliated to the world . ” At the time , Shue said she would finally like to learn and make documentary . Best known for her Oscar - appoint role inLeaving Las Vegas , one of Shue ’s most recent role was as Sheriff Julie Forester inPiranha 3D.
