Bill Gates attended Harvard University in the fall of 1973 as a pre-law student, but he loaded up on mathematics and graduate-level computer science courses. While at Harvard, he met fellow student and future Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Gates left Harvard after two years without completing his bachelors degree, but he was later awarded an honorary doctorate by the university. Despite dropping out of college, Gates has been successful in his career and philanthropic pursuits. He has also received honorary doctorates from several other universities, including Nyenrode Business Universiteit, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Waseda University, Tsinghua University, the Karolinska Institute, and Cambridge University.