NEW YORK: Harvard University's most famous dropout is to get a degree from the university. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who dropped out of the university in his junior year, will be awarded an honorary degree in June this year when he will speak at the university's commencement ceremony.
Gates, who left the university to start Microsoft and create history, would have been part of the Class of 1977, which is to celebrate its 30th year. Gates came to Harvard as a freshman in 1973. He had already tried his hand on programming and software and had written codes for computers. It was at Harvard that he helped develop a version of BASIC for the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair.
He soon quit the studies and started working full time for the company he and his childhood friend Paul Allen had founded when the duo were in their early teens.
Today, Gates is the richest man in the world and has also decided to step down from the day-to-day chores at the company he founded to devote full time for the philanthropic organization he and his wife established, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
