Stephen Wolfram's CV - Oxford & Caltech in two years?

We all know Stephen Wolfram of Wolfram Research and Wolfram|Alpha fame and his wiki and Linkedin shows that he did one year at Oxford (entering at 17) and then a one year Ph.D. at Caltech followed by working at Caltech.

He is clearly very gifted and has gone to do incredible things in computation but as a formula for success can doing this really be a good thing?

The Oxford M.Sci.CompSci is 4 years with placement (at Microsoft or something) that's 5 years and then an american graduate education is 5 years so in all that's a decade.

At that age you want to distinguish yourself from your peers and he clearly is excellent at what he does but does it go to show that it's not all that necessary to become the product of these programmes to be a pioneer?

I didn't get this all out in words as I hoped but I think you get what I mean.

Reply 1

fluteflute

Original post by Protagoras

does but does it go to show that it's not all that necessary to become the product of these programmes to be a pioneer?

Yes absolutely! Although at the same time, being able to say "I dropped out of Oxford because it was boring" must be quite useful in going forward...

Original post by Protagoras

as a formula for success can doing this really be a good thing?

I don't think we should try and follow a formula in a one sized fits all approach. It worked for him, something similar might work for others. I doubt it's a pattern we should all try and follow.