Before Bill Gates was Bill Gates, and before Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs, Internet and technological moguls all went to some sort of college to continue their studies following high school. Some of them finished, while others did not, but knowing where they started is very interesting, regardless.
The Operating Systems
Bill Gates:
Gates started out his career at Harvard University in 1973 where he was planning on attaining a degree in Pre-Law. He was mostly unsure as to what he really wanted to do, but thought that this was a good direction. He allegedly scored a 1590 on his SAT's. This held him in good stead in order to get into Harvard, which is definitely one of the best institutions in the country. Bill Gates
College: Harvard
Major: Pre-Law
Steve Jobs:
Jobs started out at Reed College, which is located in Portland, Oregon. His time at Reed was short lived, however, and he dropped out of school after only one semester. While he continued to audit classes at Reed, such as calligraphy, he never really pursued any particular major with much fervor. He soon went to work for Atari, and left the United States for a retreat to India. Shortly after returning from this trip, Steve Jobs started the formation of what was to become Apple. Steve Jobs
College: Reed College
Major: None
The Young Guns
Kevin Rose:
Rose is the creator of the online bookmarking website called Digg.com. People use this site to submit articles or interesting pieces from all over the internet, and then based on popular opinion and consensus, various articles can be "dugg" to show your approval of it. Digg has become tremendously popular in the last couple years, ranking 98th on Alexa.com's traffic rankings for all websites on the Internet. Rose attended The University of Nevada - Las Vegas pursuing a degree in computer science. He dropped out shortly after entering college to be a part of the huge tech boom. Before he made Digg.com, Rose worked for the Department of Energy. Kevin Rose
College: UNLV
Major: Computer Science
Mark Zuckerberg:
Zuckerberg is the founder and CEO of the online social network called Facebook.com. Zuckerberg started out his career at Harvard University where he was a computer science major. He was enrolled in the class of 2006, but after launching Facebook.com and realizing its tremendous potential, he took a leave of absence and shortly thereafter dropped out of college. While he was at Harvard University, Zuckerberg became a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity. Facebook.com has been rumored to have received offers upwards of $1 Billion Dollars. Mark Zuckerberg
College: Harvard
Major: Computer Science
The Online Entrepreneurs
Steve Case:
Case is best known for his work as chief executive officer and chairman of AOL - America Online. Case attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He studied political science while he was there and graduated in 1980. He started to work for Procter & Gamble after graduation. AOL was established in 1991, after being renamed from Quantum Computer Services. Steve Case
College: Williams College
Major: Political Science
Jeff Bezos:
Bezos, the CEO and founder of Amazon.com, a very popular and widely used online book store, as well as most anything you can buy, graduated as valedictorian of his high school, Miami Palmetto Senior High School, and decided to attend Princeton University. He initially wanted to study physics, but due to his love of computers, decided to rather major in computer science and electrical engineering. Shortly after his graduation, he began working on Wall Street and only in 1994 did he start Amazon.com. Jeff Bezos
College: Princeton
Major: Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Larry Page:
Page is a co-founder of a popular search engine on the Internet called Google.com. Page was born and raised to go to the University of Michigan. His father, Dr. Carl Victor Page, was one of Michigan's first Ph.D graduates in computer science. Page first went to Michigan and received a bachelor of science degree in computer engineering. Page graduated from Michigan with honors. Following this, he went to Stanford University, where he received his Masters. At Stanford, Page met who was to become a future business partner, Sergey Brin. Larry Page
College: Michigan (Bachelors), Stanford (Masters)
Major: Computer Engineering
Sergey Brin:
Brin, along with Page, co-founded and created an Internet search engine known as Google.com. Like Larry Page, Sergey Brin was nurtured to attend the same institution that his father had been at. Brin's father was a professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland - College Park. Sergey attended the University of Maryland - College Park and studied computer science and mathematics, attaining a bachelor of science degree with high honors. Following Maryland, Brin received a fellowship from the National Science Foundation, which allowed him to pursue a masters degree from Stanford in computer science. He received his masters degree in August, 1995, and went on further to attain his Ph.D. He is currently still enrolled in the Stanford doctoral degree program, but has suspended his studies while he is working at Google.com. Sergey Brin
College: Maryland (Bachelors), Stanford (Masters), Stanford (Doctoral - Still in Progress)
Major: Computer Engineering
This post was originally written by Tyrone Schiff University of Michigan · Organizational Studies · 13 Aug 2007
