From middle school dropouts to an actual PhD, the cast of The Big Bang Theory has a wide
range of real life educational experience.
Though they're not all super geniuses, they've certainly all done well for themselves.
Here's how far some of TV's top earners got in school.
Kaley Cuoco is no dumb blonde.
She never went to college, as she was a little too busy being a sitcom star to venture into
the world of higher education.
Instead, she got high school out of the way early and then graduated to Forbes' list of
highest paid TV actresses.
In a 2012 interview with Parade, Cuoco admitted that her budding career, which started with
a Barbie commercial, made her an outcast at school.
Her fellow classmates thought she believed she was cooler than them, so she decided to
withdraw and start homeschooling in fifth grade, a decision she was ultimately happy
with.
By the time she was 16 years old, she had her high school diploma.
With high school out of the way, Cuoco had time to focus on her breakout role on the
ABC sitcom 8 Simple Rules.
Though she never attended a traditional high school, she did get a small piece of the typical
high school experience when Ashley Tisdale invited her to prom, although it didn't go
down how she had hoped.
As she told Parade,
Dr. Leonard Hofstadter got his PhD at the ripe age of 24, but the actor who played him
only made it to a single day of high school, and it wasn't even a full day.
In a 2009 interview with Time Out Chicago, Johnny Galecki revealed that he dropped out
in the middle of eighth grade after years of avoiding class at all costs.
As he explained to Time Out,
Galecki might not have the math brain of his signature character, but he's always had street
smarts.
"Knowledge is the best and safest treasure...Wow, I'm boring myself."
At age 14, he lived completely alone in a studio apartment in Burbank, California while
working on the sitcom American Dreamer, his first big break.
His family had spent nine months in Long Beach before moving back to Chicago, and he stayed
behind to focus on his acting career.
Dr. Sheldon Cooper was a full-on child prodigy.
He started college when he was 11 years old and got his first of two doctorates by the
time most kids were having their first kiss.
Though Jim Parsons might not have been pursuing degrees as a teenager, he does hold one master's
degree that helped him perfect his craft.
According to Parsons' mother, her son knew he wanted to be an actor since he was three
years old.
To achieve his dreams, he was hyper-focused on his education and training, but it was
his parents who pushed him to get serious about his craft and explore a master's degree.
"Jim was a very adventurous little boy.
Loved to make-believe, very friendly, loved to play."
In an interview on NPR's Fresh Air, Parsons explained,
"They would pose questions to me like, what are you doing to make a real financial go
of this?
You know, what is your next step?
What's the whatever.
Which kind of led me to grad school."
Parsons got his undergraduate degree from the University of Houston and completed a
master's in classical theater at the University of San Diego.
He was in his late twenties during his grad school days, which is about ten years older
than Sheldon was when he got his PhD.
Mayim Bialik is the one Big Bang Theory actor who could hold her own against the character
she plays.
She has PhD in neuroscience, but her educational path was unconventional.
She left regular school in favor of on-set tutoring from ages 14 to 19 because she was
starring on the hit sitcom Blossom.
But even then, she knew she wanted to go to college.
Bialik hightailed it to UCLA right after Blossom ended in 1995.
She earned her undergrad in neuroscience and Hebrew and Jewish studies.
During her PhD research, she studied obsessive compulsive disorder and examined how the brain
secretes certain hormones.
She later used this knowledge to write a book about the hormones involved in child-parent
bonding.
"I was also made the spokesperson of Texas Instruments Calculators, so that's what you
get with a PhD in neuroscience: Big Bang Theory and you're the spokesperson for graphing calculators."
Though Balik might be a bona fide scientist, she ended up quitting that life to jump back
into showbiz.
As it turns out, Hollywood is simply easier for moms.
As she told National Geographic,
Simon Helberg didn't get quite as far in school as Howard Wolowitz.
In fact, the actor didn't even finish college, although he is a pianist in real life, a skill
he has put to use multiple times on The Big Bang Theory.
Before Helberg caught the acting bug, he was pursuing a rock-and-roll lifestyle.
In an interview with Conan O'Brien, the L.A.-bred actor revealed he joined a rock band in eighth
grade and would play on the Sunset Strip.
"I was like Rain Man.
Like, I was just like soloing, 'NA NA NA NA NA NA,' and I was looking down like, 'Deedledeedela,'
and I'd look up and, you know, they would be like an orgy on the stage, with them."
During high school, he studied jazz, where he brushed up on his piano skills before switching
gears and going to college for acting.
He went on to attend NYU's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, although he never finished.
Regardless, he found the experience valuable.
In a Golden Globes interview, he said,
Kunal Nayyar might not be a PhD astrophysicist like Raj Koothrappali, but he is very well-studied.
He has a multicultural educational background, having attended high school in India and then
coming to the United States after graduating.
"And I wasn't scared as much as I was excited, to be honest.
I was 18, you know what I mean?
I was going to a new country."
Nayyar originally pursued a traditional career path during his undergrad years at the University
of Portland, where he majored in business, and took acting classes in his free time.
If acting didn't work out, he'd always have a solid degree to fall back on.
Fortunately, he never actually needed a plan B. His acting hobby turned into a full-on
career when he won the Mark Twain Award for comic brilliance and a fellowship at the Sundance
Theater Lab.
After completing his bachelor's degree, he pursued an MFA in acting at Temple.
Melissa Rauch has more in common with Cheesecake Factory waitress-turned-PhD Bernadette that
you'd think, but it's not a shared degree.
Rauch is a born-and-bred Jersey girl, which means she spent a decent chunk of her formative
years at the mall.
Though she hasn't explicitly stated an affinity for overpriced flatbreads and cheese-based
desserts, she did measure her success in Wetzel's Pretzels rather than dollar bills.
As she revealed to NJ.com, when she had some initial success on TV, the guy at her hometown
Wetzel's would give her a free pretzel.
But alas, after the show she was on got cancelled, she had to go back to paying for her pretzels.
Thankfully, Rauch had a college education to fall back on.
It started with her typical suburban Jersey childhood, which she spent going to the shore,
taking dance lessons, and attending Brookdale Community College's arts camp.
When she graduated from Marlboro High School, she went to Marymount Manhattan for acting,
where she also developed her writing chops.
This led her to co-create her one-woman comedy show, The Miss Education of Jenna Bush.
Then she moved to L.A., and the acting jobs started trickling in.
Staten Island has brought the world many treasures, including Kevin Sussman, who embodied The
Big Bang Theory's lovable sad sack comic shop owner Stuart Bloom.
Like Stuart, who went to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, Sussman also attended
an arts college.
He graduated from New Dorp High School and then did a year of classes in his home borough
at the College of Staten Island.
From there, he transferred to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, a prestigious acting
school in Manhattan.
After earning his bachelor's degree, Sussman's acting success wasn't immediate.
He had an apprenticeship with an actress, and then he joined the workforce as a computer
consultant.
So he worked in tech during the day and filmed TV commercials when he could.
But as soon as his day job started interfering with his auditions, he made the full-time
plunge into acting.
John Ross Bowie, who played physicist Barry Kripke, almost wasn't an actor.
He originally pursued anything but, with stints as a high school teacher, a copywriter, and
the bassist for the '90s punk band Egghead.
It took him years to admit his real passion and take the plunge.
As he told The Spectrum,
Bowie earned an English degree from Ithaca College, where he worked at the campus radio
station.
In 1998, he enrolled in acting classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New
York, and joined a sketch comedy troupe that performed around the country.
That led to TV commercials and a small role in the 2000 flick Road Trip.
He ultimately managed to lock down a steady career in TV, with a starring role on the
ABC sitcom Speechless in addition to his recurring part on Big Bang.
Rati Gupta only recently started seeing major Hollywood success after her Big Bang Theory
debut as Anu in 2018.
In a 2014 interview with Glamour, she spoke about the difficulty of breaking into TV during
pilot season:
Gupta does have a decent educational background to fall back on, though it looks like the
whole acting thing is finally working out for her.
Before heading to Hollywood, she was on a pre-med path at Northwestern University and
double majored in psychology and dance.
Ultimately, she decided to pursue a dance career instead of going to medical school.
She moved to Los Angeles, where she became a coveted hip-hop dancer, appearing in videos
for the likes of Lupe Fiasco and Flo Rida, and the rest is history.
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