Has anyone read the new James Patterson memoir "Stories of My Life" ?

[anobserver2]

31. No Masters degree - he's not a "distinguished alumni"

I found an article about James Patterson, wherein he says (and I think he has said this in other articles, too), that he dropped out of Vanderbilt after only one year. That means what Vanderbilt University is posting online -- that he has an MA degree -- is false.

Again, here's what Vanderbilt has posted online:


James Patterson, MA'70


https://www.vanderbilt.edu/alumni/about/award-distinguished-alum.php

That university is promoting him as a "Distinguished Alumni" - which is false. An alumni is someone who graduated - and has a degree. But he only attended that university -- for one year. He did not graduate from it.

So Vanderbilt should remove the "MA'70" designation and stop promoting him as a "Distinguished Alumni" since: he actually never graduated and has no degree.

They should instead put up a web page called "Distinguished Attendees" and promote him that way.

Here is Patterson saying in a NYT article that he dropped out after only one year, and again, he has said this before:

After graduating from Manhattan College in 1969, Patterson was given a free ride to Vanderbilt University’s graduate program in English literature but dropped out after just one year. “I had found two things that I loved, reading and writing,” he told me. “If I became a college professor, I knew I was going to wind up killing them both off.”

The New York Times Magazine

James Patterson Inc.

By Jonathan Mahler
Jan. 20, 2010

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In that NYT magazine article Patterson does not mention anything about the VIetnam-era draft law -- even though in his memoir he states that law incorrectly, and he claims in his memoir it is one of the reasons he left Vanderbilt.