Your college major doesn’t always determine the future of your career. In fact, plenty of people wind up never using their degrees at all.
Here are 14 celebs who attended medical, law, or dental school (and if they graduated):
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For his undergrad, Ken Jeong was a pre-med major at Duke University. He went to UNC-Chapel Hill for medical school then practiced medicine for several years before going into acting full-time.
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Sofía Vergara went to dental school for two years.
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Gerard Butler earned his law degree from the University of Glasgow, where he was the Law Society president. Before his last year, he took a gap year in the US, where he traveled, took odd jobs, and — as he told Esquire in 2009 — “kept getting arrested for stupid stuff — basically just being too drunk.”
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Gemma Chan earned her law degree from Oxford University. She had the opportunity to train at the law firm Slaughter and May, but she turned it down to work as a model instead. She secretly applied to drama school and spent a year saving up to study acting.
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In 2009, Rebel Wilson graduated from the University of New South Wales with a Bachelor of Laws as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Performance Studies. She decided to pursue acting in tandem with the law because, during her gap year in Africa between high school and university, she “got malaria really, really badly, and [she] hallucinated that [she] was an actress and that [she] was really good.”
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Rashida Jones “wanted to be a lawyer, maybe a judge, maybe run for president,” so she enrolled in Harvard Law. However, she left her program after becoming disillusioned by the outcome of the OJ Simpson trial.
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Mad Max creator George Miller did his residency at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. During his final year of medical school, he made a short film and “immediately got hooked.” So, while working as a doctor, he continued pursuing his interest in moviemaking.
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In 1968, Jerry Springer graduated from the Northwestern University School of Law. He went on to work in politics.
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Author/screenwriter/filmmaker Michael Crichton — whose accomplishments include writing Jurassic Park and creating ER — graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1969. To help pay for school, he wrote “thrillers of the James Bond‐type” under the pen names John Lange or Jeffery Hudson. He also took his typewriter and worked on writing during classes he didn’t like.
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Singer/songwriter Jay Sean attended Queen Mary’s School of Medicine. He dropped out shortly after signing a £1 million recording contract with Virgin.
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Petticoat Junction actor Edgar Buchanan graduated from the North Pacific College School of Dentistry [now the Oregon Health & Science University School of Dentistry] in 1928. He worked as a dentist to provide for his family while getting his acting career off the ground.
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Monty Python member Graham Chapman studied medicine at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. After graduation in 1962, he took a year off to tour with his drama revue, the Cambridge Circus. Then, he attended St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College. He graduated in 1966 but never practiced medicine.
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And finally, growing up, Julio Iglesias “wanted to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer.” So, he briefly pursued a law degree at the University of Madrid before becoming a goalie for Real Madrid. However, in 1963, he was in a car accident that resulted in a sports career-ending spinal injury. Upon his recovery, he went to Cambridge University, where he studied language by day and sang in pubs at night. He dropped out to take his then-girlfriend to Spain for the summer.
