Examples of sucessful/intelligent people who do not have university degrees

[deathbow2134]

Hello all!

Tommorow I will be in a debate about whether it should be mandatory that politicians have a degree or not.

So, it would be nice if you guys could help and give me some examples of sucessful and/or intelligent people who do not have a unviersity degree, particually people related to politics and economics.

So far, the only person who I can think of is Bill Gates.

Any ideas?

[jbking]

The College Dropouts Hall of Fame may have a few for you though it may take some time to comb through the initial data.

[deathbow2134]

jbking @ Wed May 19, 2010 5:46 pm wrote:

The College Dropouts Hall of Fame may have a few for you though it may take some time to comb through the initial data.

Oh, this is great! Thanks!

[DemonWasp]

You may have to resort to magic...

[Tony]

deathbow2134 @ Wed May 19, 2010 5:07 pm wrote:

sucessful and/or intelligent people who do not have a unviersity degree...
So far, the only person who I can think of is Bill Gates.

Be careful with that statement, as Bill has at least 7 degrees:

Quote:

Gates has received honorary doctorates from Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands, in 2000;[69] the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, in 2002; Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, in 2005; Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in April 2007;[70] Harvard University in June 2007;[71] the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, in January 2008,[72] and Cambridge University in June 2009[73]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_gates

Although they are all honourary degrees and were awarded after his company's success.

[chrisbrown]

Tony @ Wed May 19, 2010 6:16 pm wrote:

Be careful with that statement, as Bill has at least 7 degrees

You could make a strong argument that a university degree is not a prerequisite for intelligence or success.

Also, (if I may):
You could also make the argument that intelligence is not a prerequisite for a university degree.
G. W. Bush has a Harvard MBA and an Arts degree from Yale.

[wtd]

Steve Jobs - dropout
Steve Wozniak - dropout
Larry Ellison - doesn't appear to have graduated from college
Michael Dell
Richard Branson
Henry Ford

[X Abstract X]

John Carmack

[Tony]

There's often a much deeper story to those though

wtd @ Wed May 19, 2010 9:11 pm wrote:

Steve Jobs - dropout

Steve left because he didn't feel right having his parents foot his tuition costs. Some of the elective classes that he took did have a positive impact on the development of Macintosh computers.

Mike Lazaridis -- left Waterloo in 4th year as his Engineering design project was being turned into what now is a BlackBerry.