Okade begins working toward her college degree, becoming one of the youngest university students in the UK. She is already at the top of her class, scoring 100% on a test. Her mother, Efe:
Esther talks about running her own bank one day. She has a lot of plans, and talks a lot about finances. She says she wants to be a millionaire.
Hastings quits drinking and transfers to New York University.
While a permanent student at Brown University, Watson begins her 2011-2012 academic year abroad to study English at Worcester College, England. In a message on her website, the actress tells her fans that she’s been busy studying and wishes them luck with their own:
You might not hear from me for a while because I will be really busy studying but I wanted to just say hi and bye : )
At Columbia, Sulkowicz plans to study mechanical physics but ends up studying visual arts instead. She joins Alpha Delta Phi (ADP), Columbia’s co-ed “hipster frat”. As she puts it:
Only the most hipster of the hipster kids can get in.
Sulkowicz and Nungesser, a film fanatic and rower, meet at the fraternity.
He was a nice person; a cool person who was secretly really crazy.
The actress joins Brown University’s class of 2013. During her first day of orientation, Watson participates in group orientation week events such as a yoga class, midnight organ concert, and games night. The actress, who will be studying literature at the university, says:
I want to be normal. I really want anonymity. I want to do [the college experience] properly, like everyone else. As long as I don’t walk in and see, like, Harry Potter posters everywhere, I’ll be fine.
Swartz attends Stanford University for a year, leaving to start the software company Infogami, a startup that was funded by Y Combinator’s first Summer Founders Program. Infogami was built around a wiki backend, a subject of interest for Swartz since his early effort to develop ”theinfo”, a wiki-based encyclopedia
During his freshman year at Connecticut College, Hastings continues experimenting with drugs a la his hero, Hunter S. Thompson. In addition to drinking heavily, he uses Adderall, cocaine, and crack. He neglects his grades and is asked to leave the school, moving back in with his parents in Burlington, Vermont.
Carney joins Auerbach at the University of Akron, initially pursuing photojournalism. He attends school for five semesters:
…I was still a freshman because I kept changing my major. I took a few philosophy classes and studied medieval philosophy but decided I hated it. Then I took a few art classes and a general music class, but I ended up dropping out of school for the spring semester of 2002, and Dan had already dropped out.
Carney attends the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for about six months.
I was getting straight A’s, so I knew there was something wrong, because I had 2.0 in high school. So that’s why I left. It felt like a joke.
Auerbach attends college. He gets Kimbrough’s album during his first year and is inspired to drop out and pursue music seriously.
When I heard his album All Night Long, I dropped out of college and started playing seriously. His shit is weird North Mississippi dance music. He came up with his own style, influenced by local folks. He had the bravery to try something different.
Walker drops out of college a year before graduating and leaves in good standing.
During my senior year at Marquette University, I was offered a full-time job at the American Red Cross. I thought I would squeeze in a course here or there and finish things off in a year or two, but then Tonette and I got married. Next thing you know, you’re putting all your extra time and money into your kids.
Arrington enrols at the private liberal arts college east of L.A. A friend who attended the college with him says he had an entrepreneurial bent in college, and took over a recycling scheme at the dorm building:
He’s sort of an opportunist by nature.
Walker runs for president of the student body against John Quigley. Walker runs on a 19-point resume. He urges cooperation with administrators and opposes sit-ins and protests. He promises safer streets and bringing in cool bands like INXS and REM. He also highlights his anti-abortion views. He hands out buttons that say “Beam Me Up, Scotty!” Slogans are sprayed on campus snowbanks with water and food coloring. The campaign also arranges a special deal at Lucci’s Pizza: Walker voters get extra cheese free. However, the election commission finds Walker guilty of campaigning a week early. His supporters are accused of stealing copies of the campus newspaper that endorses his opponent so students cannot read it. The day before the election Stephen Satran, Walker’s roommate and supporter, distributes a flier attacking Walker’s opponent. The next day the campus newspaper says Walker is unfit for president. Walker loses the election 1,245 to 927. Many think he loses because of that flier. Satran:
That was all because of something I did. Scott didn’t even know about it. The worst thing you can say about him in that time was that he shouldn’t have trusted some of his friends. He shouldn’t have trusted me.
Walker enrolls at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During his freshman year he becomes a student senator tasked to investigate a scandal where members of student government has a homecoming dinner at the Pfister hotel charged to student government accounts. Walker’s committee recommends impeachment and the student body president and vice-president resign. There is a full trial in the student senate and the accused are acquitted. Glen Barry, who is caught up in the scandal, calls it a “McCarthyite investigation” saying that:
no criminal charges of any kind, and no hard evidence of wrong-doing by anyone [was found] – Walker grandstands and leads a student government trial of myself and others, that could have been avoided if he so chose. Walker lost on all counts, but not before destroying a few people’s reputations, and amassing personal power.
The actor graduates from Fordham University with a B.A. in Drama and Journalism. He originally takes up biology, but after dropping out for a semester to work at a YMCA camp as creative arts director, he comes back with a new focus. On his time at Fordham:
Being in this part of town at that time, on this stage, I can’t tell you how much it did for me…I was right here at Lincoln Center, right in the middle of things.
The family settles in Long Island and Albright starts graduate studies at Columbia University, where she obtains her doctorate in International Studies. At Columbia, Albright is active as a campaign worker and fund-raiser for Democrat Senator Edmund Muskie.
Bond takes a social philosophy class at Morehouse College taught by King, one year before the civil rights leader would give his “I Have a Dream” speech in the nation’s capital.
A lot of people will tell you they are a student of Martin Luther King Jr. But Martin Luther King Jr. only taught one class in his lifetime. There were only eight students in that class. I was one of the eight.
Cosby receives a “Track and Field” athletic scholarship at Temple University, Philadelphia. He studies physical education along with running track. Cosby also plays fullback on the football team and joins the school’s chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. He plays freshman football.
I’m around 185. I think I am a good running back, but I’m really not that fast. There is only one thing I can do, that is throw a cross-body block. Picture perfect. I love it. Not that good at pass blocking.
After one hit:
I started to feel my legs and I said, ‘Oh, my God, I’m paralyzed.’ If I don’t try to move, I’ll never know if I’m paralyzed, so I stay there. My trainer says, ‘Ask him his name.’ Dumbest thing I ever heard. I said, ‘Rumpelstiltskin,’ and Coach said, ‘He’s all right!’ I got up and the field was tilting. Somebody tapped me and said, ‘You have to go off the field.’
On deciding to become a physical education teacher:
They put me in remedial everything at Temple University and I will tell you I was the happiest 23 year old in remedial everything. I was there and I now knew what I had to do.
While at school Cosby tends bar and tells jokes. He continues to wear a cherry-red Temple sweatshirt while working clubs in Philadelphia and New York.
It made me walk from the dressing room to the stage. There would be no fear — unless I put that fear in myself.