Elon Musk - College Years

Undergrad: Physics & Economics
Ph.D : Physics [DROPOUT]

Musk began his college career at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. It is said that Musk picked Queen's University over his other option, the University of Waterloo because there were prettier girls at Queen's than Waterloo. At Queen's, Musk used to sell computers and computers parts, he would also fix computers for people to earn some cash on the side. Musk also competed in public speaking contests. After two years at Queen's , Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania with a scholarship. When discussing his time at Queens Musk said, "In the first two years at university, you learn a lot about a great many things. One particular thing that I learned at Queen's -both from faculty and students- was how to work collaboratively with smart people and make use of socratic methods to achieve commonality of purpose"

At his new school Musk had a more thrilling lifestyle where he would frequently host monster parties at his house on weekends. Musk and his roommate Adeo Ressi, a future silicon valley star would charge a five-dollar entrance fee. Ressi said that some weekends they'd have up to 500 people show up. Through these parties Musk could make his months rent in one weekend. In an interview about Musk, Ressi said, "Elon was the mist straight-laced dude you have ever met. He never drank. He never did anything. Zero. Literally nothing." Ressi said the only time Elon misbehaved was during his video game binges which sometimes went on for days. Musk finished his undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania where majored in physics and economics at the Wharton School.

When considering what he wanted to get into after college, Musk was initially planning on pursuing his lifelong passion and getting involved in the video game industry. He then decided that he could not have a big enough impact on the world in that industry. Musk later returned to school to complete his Ph.D in applied physics at Stanford University but dropped out after just two days.