MovieChat Forums > The Lost Weekend Discussion > Don's college

Don's college

posted 12 years ago by uxg1995
3 replies | jump to latest

Why Don never graduate? Why didn't want to become a professor, as he was qualified for it as he like to engage in chatting?

[–] peddlerwhospoke 12 years ago

He went to Cornell, which is an Ivy school. I just saw the film, loved it. I am about to read the book, maybe it will clear this up.

[–] mdpfbgd 11 years ago

A lot of people then started but didnt finish college just like today. In the 30s, the depression made money run out, in the 40s it was the war.

A lot of writers of the general era didn't finish or even go to college, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, O'Hara. Apparently, English composition was taught well enough in those days that a high school graduate could get a reporter job and graduate on to correspondent, etc. A college degree wasn't regarded by the journalism or literary world as a prerequisite.

Now you could barely find high school graduates whose writing you could tolerate reading for longer than a few minutes.

[–] kmc-4 11 years ago

He said that he had gotten something published in the Atlantic Monthly (I believe) and then something else. He was doing great as a writer, and a lot of other writers like Hemingway didn't finish college. So, he packed his bags and headed off to NYC, but he didn't sustain the same success once he left school.