Top 10 Celebs With Surprising College Majors

As one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, with starring roles in blockbusters like “Skyscraper” and the “Fast and Furious” franchise, it can be easy to forget that Dwayne Johnson got his start in pro wrestling. However, to prove just how talented he really is, you need to go back even further. Johnson received a full scholarship from the University of Miami to play football and while he was there, he actually found time to study, graduating in 1995 with a Bachelor of General Studies in Criminology and Physiology. The former is particularly interesting seeing as how Johnson has made a career out of beating up bad guys!

Landing a starring role on a hit TV show isn’t easy and landing two can be downright impossible. Unless of course you’re Ben McKenzie. He notably got his start playing Ryan Atwood on the seminal teen drama “The O.C.” before later going on to play James Gordon on “Gotham” in 2014. However, long before he was breaking hearts and bones on network television, he was a student at the University of Virginia. He majored in foreign affairs and economics and upon graduating in 2001 moved to New York City to pursue a career in… acting? Yeah, it seems he wasn’t interested in putting his degree to use.

This Golden Globe nominated actress has been a small screen mainstay for nearly two decades, with prominent roles on shows like “The Young and the Restless” and “Desperate Housewives” and guest spots on everything from “MasterChef” to “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”. So, what did this future star study in college? Theatre? Acting? Try kinesiology, the study of body movement. Longoria received her degree after studying at Texas A&M, but her academic career was far from over, as she later earned a master’s degree in Chicano Studies from California State University in 2013.

Yes even Mr. Bean went to college. Rowan Atkinson may be most famous worldwide for playing a lovable bumbling man-child, but in real life he’s one smart cookie. In the ‘70s he earned a degree in electrical engineering from Newcastle University in England, but he wasn’t fully satisfied. So, in 1975 he began working towards a Master of Science degree in the same subject, only this time he would be attending The Queen’s College, a constituent of the University of Oxford. His time there must have meant a lot to him, as he would later make a sizeable donation to the school in memory of his father Eric Atkinson, who was at student there in the 1930s.

When Shaquille O’Neal left college to play in the NBA, he promised his mother that one day he would complete his studies. O’Neal has since lived up to that promise, and then some! Aside from being a 4 time NBA Champion, 3 time NBA Finals MVP, a Hall of Famer and a gold medal winner, Shaq also holds multiple degrees. He got his B.A. in General Studies in 2000; an online Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Phoenix in 2005, and in 2012 received a Doctor of Education in Human Resource Development from Barry University. Not bad for a guy who could have easily retired on an island in the Caribbean after his career ended.

You surely know him best from his titular role on the Disney Channel classic “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody”, or his current gig as Jughead Jones on the hit Netflix series “Riverdale”, but there was a time when Cole Sprouse was just another student trying to complete his degree. Sprouse picked an unlikely major - Geographical Information Systems – which according to him is a form of “virtual cartography”; he was interested in using technology to help pinpoint sites on archaeological digs. He graduated from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2015.

Arguably the most popular, not to mention funniest comedian of his generation, Will Ferrell has made a career out of playing well-meaning man children that always seem to take things too far. From the few stories that have surfaced about his days in college it seems that Ferrell based many of his most iconic character traits on things he himself did while in school. How he found the time to study amidst all the pranks, streaking and other frat related shenanigans we will never know, but in 1990 he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sports information (a major later discontinued at the school).

It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Lisa Kudrow playing everyone’s favorite scatterbrained sweetheart, Phoebe Buffay on “Friends”. And yet, her dream of becoming an actress was at one time superseded by her desire to become a physician like her father. She graduated from New York’s Vassar College in 1985 with a degree in biology and immediately started working with her dad. However, around that time she was bit by the acting bug and would eventually leave the medical world for the entertainment industry. Another celeb with a degree in biology is Josh Duhamel, best known for his work in the “Transformers” franchise.

Freddie Mercury may have been rock n’ roll’s most talented vocalist, but Brian May is arguably its smartest! The Queen guitarist earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Imperial College London in the ‘70s and had begun working towards a PhD in astrophysics when Queen began to get big. As such he was forced to put his studies on hold for more than three decades. In 2006 he returned to Imperial College and received his PhD the following year. These days you’re just as likely to catch this rock legend touring NASA as playing a guitar riff; and we bet he’s just fine with that!

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions:

Kourtney Kardashian
Theatre Arts

Chris Martin
Ancient World Studies (Greek and Latin)

Rashida Jones
Religion and Philosophy

Long before she was making us laugh with her outrageous antics and hilarious physical comedy in films like “Pitch Perfect,” actress Rebel Wilson was hitting the books at the University of New South Wales. She graduated in 2009 with a degree in Theatre and Performance Studies and a law degree. So yeah, she’s pretty smart. Wilson isn’t the only celeb with a law degree either, as action star Gerard Butler graduated with one of his own from the University of Glasgow School of Law in the early ‘90s. Maybe one day Butler and Wilson can make a movie together where they open their own law firm. We’d definitely pay to see that!