How I got a PhD after being a high school dropout

Every kid deserves a second (or third) chance

Not-so-Happy Days / Grok 2 mini (beta)

This little trend hit Notes last week, so I posted mine here and on X:

People were kind of surprised that I could drop out of high school twice and still go on to get a PhD in astrophysics. I guess it does sound a little weird. But my experience can serve as a lesson in the few things a kid needs to flourish.

During grades 1 through 6, I loved school. I was a high-achiever who never had to be told to do my schoolwork. But once I got to middle school and junior high, school became the worst. I hated it.

Maybe some of you will disagree, but I contend that the most awful time for human beings is between the ages of 13 and 16. Hormones + immaturity that thinks it's mature = a horrible social scene. On top of that, for me anyway, school was frustratingly boring.

My parents had divorced by the time I hit this difficult stage of life, and my brother and I were bouncing between two parents and two different countries. I hated school, and I hated my home life. I started to get in a lot of trouble. I won’t go into details, but I’ll just say that by the time I was 14, I was no stranger to the in-school suspension room and the back of a police car. My brother, Ben, managed to get in less trouble than I did, but he was also not doing well.

I finally stopped going to school in the 9th grade. I moved to Portland and spent half that year drawing, reading, and exploring the incredible natural beauty of western Oregon. That was a good time. The other half of that year was spent homeless in Canada, living in other people’s basements. That wasn’t such a good time, but it was still better than my previous situation.

In Canada, once we had a home, I enrolled in school again. I tested out of the 9th grade and was admitted to junior high to take 10th grade with other kids my age. It wasn’t as awful as 9th grade had been, but it was the same problems all over again. Terrible social scene and boring schoolwork. So, I quit, again.

I tried homeschooling after 10th grade, but I didn't do well without structure. I mostly frittered that year away weightlifting and watching G.I. Joe cartoons.

During that year, we moved in with my grandparents, who were already like a second set of parents to me and Ben. The stability they provided gave me the emotional space to feel like it was time to try school one more time.

Thankfully, my dad found something that worked for both me and Ben. He enrolled us in an International Baccalaureate high school, though it took some convincing for the admins to accept a low-performing dropout. The combination of the right environment—great teachers and high-achieving nerds—and challenging material was exactly right.

Ben and I also needed to be athletically challenged. My dad owned and managed gyms at the time, and I found some focus prepping to become a bodybuilder. My dad even hired a professional bodybuilder to be my coach, and I was working out both before and after school each day. Ben, meanwhile, started playing football. Even though my dad wasn’t totally happy about him playing in such an injury-prone sport, he helped Ben practice and asked one of his clients—a professional football player—to help Ben get some extra training.

On top of all this, I worked two part-time jobs after school that I absolutely loved.

Based on this, I believe kids need just a few key things to flourish:

• to be busy and challenged with things they love

• to be around the right kind of people

• to be in a stable home environment.

Those final two years of high school ended up being a very happy time for us, and that set us up for our eventual careers in STEM.

I got my undergraduate degree in physics and math and went on to get a masters and PhD in astrophysics. My crazy-smart brother got his undergraduate degree in engineering physics and went on to get two masters degrees and a PhD in aerospace engineering.

We have our dad and our grandparents to thank for a lot of that. Dad let me drop out of school both of those times, much to the consternation of the rest of the family. But it was an important step in preserving my mental health. Those two years I spent outside of the brutal junior high social scene and not mindlessly grinding through boring schoolwork allowed me to develop a lot of self-confidence. My grandparents meanwhile provided a stable and pleasant home life. Dad then found the right academic and athletic solutions for me and my brother and advocated for us.

Please keep all this in mind if you have a child who's struggling with school or with life in general. First of all, don’t give up on them. Second, do everything you can to make their home life stable and pleasant. Third, every kid is unique. If you can find out what makes them tick and are willing to be a little out-of-the-box, you can find a solution that works.