Srinivasa Ramanujan failed to make it through college, but mathematics was not the problem.

In 1904, he entered Government College in Kumbakonam on a scholarship. He became so absorbed in mathematics that he neglected his other subjects. He failed his examinations except mathematics and lost the scholarship.

He later tried again at Pachaiyappa’s College in Madras. In the First Arts examination, he passed mathematics but failed all his other subjects.

Ramanujan left college without a degree and continued studying mathematics independently.

Years later, the same mathematical work brought him to Cambridge and eventually made him a Fellow of the Royal Society.

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