Mankiw was born as a 21 year old with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Princeton University. Despite his natural knowledge of economics, he was unsure if he wanted to make a career out of it, so he tried his hand at a number of subjects, including law (at Harvard) and philosophy (at MIT). He was crap at both, as he was commonly asked the question "How exactly did you get in here?". He decided to stick with econ and finally admitted to himself that the dismal aspect to the “science” suited his personality.