thedrifter
06-03-08, 08:38 AM
The Fives: Graduation season special -- dropouts that did their parents proud
By Todd Williams, Journal staff
Let me start off this column with a disclaimer: Nothing beats a good education.
With the last of most high school graduations wrapping up this week, it's an accomplishment to which we all should pay proper reverence. And the proof is in the statistics that at the very least, a high school diploma is worth $400,000 in career earnings over a lifetime and will actually give you slightly longer life.
With that said, I always find it fascinating the people who dropped out of high school. It is notable that many of these people later returned to school so they could obtain post-secondary degrees and more, which should serve as mere inspiration that we should never stop learning, or more importantly, never stop wanting to learn.
Five people who dropped out of high school who went on to notoriety
5. Bill Janklow
Say what you want about the highly controversial politician/attorney, few South Dakotans have achieved more with such a rocky start.
Janklow dropped out of high school and joined the Marines at 16. When he returned to his home state, he talked his way into the University of South Dakota without having a high school diploma. Then, he went on to law school.
From there, he went on to become attorney general, a four-time South Dakota governor and a U.S. Congressman.
Now, there are many South Dakotans who would never want their children to grow up to be like the former governor and representative, but for never having attained a high school diploma, his accomplishments are significant.
4. Andrew Jackson
The seventh president of the United States was probably to busy fighting in the Revolutionary War and being imprisoned as a prisoner of war to finish his high school education.
Still, the lack of formal education didn't prevent Jackson from rising to become one of the greatest U.S. presidents. It didn't even keep him from practicing law or even teaching school.
Jackson, whose character is among the most unique of all presidents, also endured a rough beginning of life, with his father killed in a logging accident weeks before the future president's birth and joining the war effort at the age of 13.
3. Jane Austen
The poster girl for home schooling, Jane Austen's lack of formal education was not unlike many women and young girls from her era. In reality, education in her day was far more a privilege than a provision of the government. That in itself would be a lesson well learned by many.
Austen's place in English literature is paramount to the romantic movement, and she wrote such literary classics as "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice" in her short life, which was ended by Addisons Disease at age 41.
2. Thomas Edison
For Edison, the common classroom simply couldn't contain his voracious need to learn and learn quickly. Although he didn't begin speaking until the age of 4 and was thought by one of his early teachers to be "addled," he went on to become perhaps the greatest inventor ever to tread the globe.
Edison, who suffered from ADHD, helped usher in the modern age with the development of the light bulb, motion pictures and more.
1. Albert Einstein
Even the iconic Einstein, the very image of genius, failed to finish high school -- on the first try, anyhow.
The famed physicist found the boundaries of standard education far too restrictive and dropped out of secondary school in Munich. Later, he tried to gain entrance to post-secondary school in Zurich but failed his entrance examination.
Although he disliked secondary school, he returned to finish and get his diploma, eventually enrolling in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.
The rest is history.
Ellie
By Todd Williams, Journal staff
Let me start off this column with a disclaimer: Nothing beats a good education.
With the last of most high school graduations wrapping up this week, it's an accomplishment to which we all should pay proper reverence. And the proof is in the statistics that at the very least, a high school diploma is worth $400,000 in career earnings over a lifetime and will actually give you slightly longer life.
With that said, I always find it fascinating the people who dropped out of high school. It is notable that many of these people later returned to school so they could obtain post-secondary degrees and more, which should serve as mere inspiration that we should never stop learning, or more importantly, never stop wanting to learn.
Five people who dropped out of high school who went on to notoriety
5. Bill Janklow
Say what you want about the highly controversial politician/attorney, few South Dakotans have achieved more with such a rocky start.
Janklow dropped out of high school and joined the Marines at 16. When he returned to his home state, he talked his way into the University of South Dakota without having a high school diploma. Then, he went on to law school.
From there, he went on to become attorney general, a four-time South Dakota governor and a U.S. Congressman.
Now, there are many South Dakotans who would never want their children to grow up to be like the former governor and representative, but for never having attained a high school diploma, his accomplishments are significant.
4. Andrew Jackson
The seventh president of the United States was probably to busy fighting in the Revolutionary War and being imprisoned as a prisoner of war to finish his high school education.
Still, the lack of formal education didn't prevent Jackson from rising to become one of the greatest U.S. presidents. It didn't even keep him from practicing law or even teaching school.
Jackson, whose character is among the most unique of all presidents, also endured a rough beginning of life, with his father killed in a logging accident weeks before the future president's birth and joining the war effort at the age of 13.
3. Jane Austen
The poster girl for home schooling, Jane Austen's lack of formal education was not unlike many women and young girls from her era. In reality, education in her day was far more a privilege than a provision of the government. That in itself would be a lesson well learned by many.
Austen's place in English literature is paramount to the romantic movement, and she wrote such literary classics as "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice" in her short life, which was ended by Addisons Disease at age 41.
2. Thomas Edison
For Edison, the common classroom simply couldn't contain his voracious need to learn and learn quickly. Although he didn't begin speaking until the age of 4 and was thought by one of his early teachers to be "addled," he went on to become perhaps the greatest inventor ever to tread the globe.
Edison, who suffered from ADHD, helped usher in the modern age with the development of the light bulb, motion pictures and more.
1. Albert Einstein
Even the iconic Einstein, the very image of genius, failed to finish high school -- on the first try, anyhow.
The famed physicist found the boundaries of standard education far too restrictive and dropped out of secondary school in Munich. Later, he tried to gain entrance to post-secondary school in Zurich but failed his entrance examination.
Although he disliked secondary school, he returned to finish and get his diploma, eventually enrolling in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.
The rest is history.
Ellie