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dolorosa_12This week's prompt is brought to you by a convoluted game of telephone (![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png)
misshoijer told lauropea, who told Matthias, who told me) through which I discovered this morning that one of the alumni from my MPhil and PhD programmes (he was doing his undergrad degree in the same department at the time; the department was so small that postgrads and undergrads all hung out together) has subsequently gone on to become a comedian and actor, with his current major role apparently being to do impressions of Keir Starmer on the UK version of Saturday Night Live. Matthias and I were so flabbergasted by this, as we had no idea that he was involved in the student theatre scene at all during his time in our degree programmes, so although he's apparently been part of the UK comedy circuit for many years, the whole thing was brand new information to us.
So the prompt is as follows: are there any people from your university (or school) social circles who ended up in surprising or unexpected lines of work? If so, what?
Obviously if you're going to post about real people's identities, it's probably best to limit this to genuine public figures — hopefully you're able to use your own judgement about this.
As well as George (described above), I went to university (in this case undergraduate degree; we were in the same English Honours programme, which consisted of about thirty people, all of whom were friends at the time) with another person who went on to become a fairly successful comedian, ditching a career in law to do so. There were a few people in my secondary school who went on to achieve some local, Australian success in an indie band (for Australians reading this, they got to the level of being played on Triple J and performing and all the standard local festivals), but I didn't really know them, just knew of them, as my secondary school was massive.
I also went to high school and college (college=the last two years of secondary school, which in Canberra take place in a separate school from the first four years of high school) with this guy, who played football (soccer) for the Australian team; we had friends in common but weren't really friends. Likewise this guy, who was a student at my college (although his Wikipedia page doesn't mention that school at all), and last I heard was trying to succeed as a stunt double in films, although it now appears that he's branched out into other types of acting and TV hosting work in Australia. Again, we had friends in common but weren't friends ourselves.
And while I most definitely was not friends with him (there was no way on Earth I would have ended up friends with someone active in conservative student politics and heavily involved in the campaign for voluntary — as opposed to the then-default compulsory — student unionism), my undergrad years did coincide with this guy. I remembered him as a perennially unsuccessful student politician (because those of us who did bother to vote in student elections were basically voting left, or more left), and then suddenly he popped up as premier of New South Wales! As I had not been paying much attention to state politics since leaving Australia, this did feel as if it came out of nowhere.
Edited to add (because how could I forget this?): During my postgraduate studies at Cambridge, one of Matthias's and my closest friends from our department (he and Matthias were best man at each other's respective weddings, Matthias is godfather to one of his daughters) was — for reasons that I cannot imagine — good friends with two guys who ended up fairly high up at Cambridge Analytica. They were as irredeemably awful and unpleasant to be around as you might imagine. (Sample conversation, paraphrased: 'When we manipulated voters in elections in African countries, I didn't really think anything of it, but then we used the same tactics in the Brexit referendum and I started to wonder if it was a bit unethical.') I didn't choose to be in social situations with them, but it sometimes happened.
What about you?
misshoijer told lauropea, who told Matthias, who told me) through which I discovered this morning that one of the alumni from my MPhil and PhD programmes (he was doing his undergrad degree in the same department at the time; the department was so small that postgrads and undergrads all hung out together) has subsequently gone on to become a comedian and actor, with his current major role apparently being to do impressions of Keir Starmer on the UK version of Saturday Night Live. Matthias and I were so flabbergasted by this, as we had no idea that he was involved in the student theatre scene at all during his time in our degree programmes, so although he's apparently been part of the UK comedy circuit for many years, the whole thing was brand new information to us. So the prompt is as follows: are there any people from your university (or school) social circles who ended up in surprising or unexpected lines of work? If so, what?
Obviously if you're going to post about real people's identities, it's probably best to limit this to genuine public figures — hopefully you're able to use your own judgement about this.
As well as George (described above), I went to university (in this case undergraduate degree; we were in the same English Honours programme, which consisted of about thirty people, all of whom were friends at the time) with another person who went on to become a fairly successful comedian, ditching a career in law to do so. There were a few people in my secondary school who went on to achieve some local, Australian success in an indie band (for Australians reading this, they got to the level of being played on Triple J and performing and all the standard local festivals), but I didn't really know them, just knew of them, as my secondary school was massive.
I also went to high school and college (college=the last two years of secondary school, which in Canberra take place in a separate school from the first four years of high school) with this guy, who played football (soccer) for the Australian team; we had friends in common but weren't really friends. Likewise this guy, who was a student at my college (although his Wikipedia page doesn't mention that school at all), and last I heard was trying to succeed as a stunt double in films, although it now appears that he's branched out into other types of acting and TV hosting work in Australia. Again, we had friends in common but weren't friends ourselves.
And while I most definitely was not friends with him (there was no way on Earth I would have ended up friends with someone active in conservative student politics and heavily involved in the campaign for voluntary — as opposed to the then-default compulsory — student unionism), my undergrad years did coincide with this guy. I remembered him as a perennially unsuccessful student politician (because those of us who did bother to vote in student elections were basically voting left, or more left), and then suddenly he popped up as premier of New South Wales! As I had not been paying much attention to state politics since leaving Australia, this did feel as if it came out of nowhere.
Edited to add (because how could I forget this?): During my postgraduate studies at Cambridge, one of Matthias's and my closest friends from our department (he and Matthias were best man at each other's respective weddings, Matthias is godfather to one of his daughters) was — for reasons that I cannot imagine — good friends with two guys who ended up fairly high up at Cambridge Analytica. They were as irredeemably awful and unpleasant to be around as you might imagine. (Sample conversation, paraphrased: 'When we manipulated voters in elections in African countries, I didn't really think anything of it, but then we used the same tactics in the Brexit referendum and I started to wonder if it was a bit unethical.') I didn't choose to be in social situations with them, but it sometimes happened.
What about you?
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 11:36 am (UTC)Rather a roundabout connection, but my dad’s second cousin (whose parents lived near to where I grew up, and whom I met several times) did Footlights at Cambridge in the eighties with Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson! (My friend also met Emma Thompson at a gig once, because the lead singer was a friend of Thompson’s daughter at their elite boarding school - said singer was also friends with a friend of mine at Cambridge, with whom I’ve since fallen out of touch.)
I don’t use any mainstream social media, so I’m not very up-to-date on what my classmates from school and university are doing! But I did Google the name of an old classmate from my form at grammar school out of curiosity, and it turns out she’s now a model and an actress with her own IMDB page - very unsurprising, as she was always very talented at drama and extremely conventionally attractive.
I also went to school with the daughters of that awful “Natural Nurse” antivaxx influencer, the one who was in the news a while ago for persuading her daughter not to undergo chemotherapy for her very treatable form of cancer (with the tragic and predictable result that the daughter died). They were a few years below me at school, and I never spoke to them, but it was still a shock when the family appeared in the news and I recognised them.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 12:04 pm (UTC)That is so cool! And I love the other Emma Thompson connection as well.
It's nice to hear that your classmate ended up able to make a career for herself modelling and acting — even if she is attractive and good at drama, those are tough fields in which to succeed.
The 'Natural Nurse' situation is so tragic and sad. Her poor daughters!
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Date: 2026-05-15 12:33 pm (UTC)You're right that it's hard to talk about real people if they're not public figures, and I can't think of any non-public figure examples! I will say I was surprised that a few former mean girls from school became teachers. On the other hand, it explained a few things. (I've heard there's a mean girl to nurse pipeline as well, and maybe that also tracks.)
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 04:08 pm (UTC)With this particular comedian, she was heavily involved in student theatre and comedy the whole time we were at university together, so she already had a pretty solid grounding. Law degrees in Australia are undergrad degrees (and are commonly done as part of double degrees, like Economics-Law or Arts-Law, which is what she was doing, and explains why we were on the same English honours course, since I most certainly did not do a law degree), and I think that also gives people more time to pursue these types of extra-curricular interests than if law degrees were postgraduate qualifications like in the US. In any case, as far as I understand it from what she said at the time, she did all the standard high-achieving law student things, got accepted to a job in a prestigious law firm, and hated it immediately, and decided to be a comedian.
I'm not surprised at all at the mean girl to teacher pipeline. One of the worst of my primary school bullies became a primary school teacher, which always horrifies me when I remember!
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 01:22 pm (UTC)Being at a fancy private school before that (both my parents taught there so my tuition was free), I did go to school with some characters. Most notably the daughter of the ambassador from Belize, and the daughter of a local lawyer whose TV adverts were a source of much embarrassment to her. I know one of my former classmates became a nun and is at a convent in southern California now, and another who I traded first and second places with at almost every Highland dance competition we went to eventually went on to win the world championships at least once (possibly twice but I didn't keep too careful track). That's about it though.
Some of my mother's students have gone on to minor celebrity; she taught Gene Wu, who I fondly remember carrying me piggy-back around Disney World on a spring break trip, and a former newscaster and investigative journalist who seems to have gone off the internet grid so I'll respect that (as I recall she got in some trouble with some far right domestic terrorists).
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 04:19 pm (UTC)What an incredible memory of Gene Wu piggy-backing you around Disney World! That's amazing! Although I'm very sorry to hear about the investigative journalist — what an awful and scary thing to have happened.
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Date: 2026-05-15 04:28 pm (UTC)I do at least know the journalist is alright now - she moved to a different state and was, last I heard, still a news presenter under a different name. My mum had lunch with her a few months ago and reported that she's doing well.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 04:39 pm (UTC)The really sad thing (and I could write a much longer rant about this) is that politicians set the tone for the countries they lead, and while of course there were racists and anti-immigration rhetoric in Australia at the time, there was a general society-wide understanding that people fleeing war and political violence were at risk and deserving of safety and compassion, rather than a political punching bag to be scapegoated for all societal problems. All that changed in the wake of 9/11, unfortunately. I would assume similar trajectories in a lot of other countries.
I do at least know the journalist is alright now - she moved to a different state and was, last I heard, still a news presenter under a different name. My mum had lunch with her a few months ago and reported that she's doing well.
That is a big relief to know! I'm glad she's doing well.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 01:48 pm (UTC)From university probably my most famous friend is Julian Huppert: we met as undergraduates and served on the same student society committee for a couple of years. I put a lot of volunteer time into his election campaign and thought he made a good MP for Cambridge, and a good spokesman for science. We're still occasionally in touch, although I do very little politics now and he's running a think tank last I heard.
(There was the memorable time I found him tagged in a politics RPF fic on AO3 back in 2011 or so - I have never back-buttoned so fast in my life)
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Date: 2026-05-15 04:26 pm (UTC)There was the memorable time I found him tagged in a politics RPF fic on AO3 back in 2011 or so - I have never back-buttoned so fast in my life
Oh my God, that is hilarious (and also excruciating)! No wonder you back-buttoned!
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Date: 2026-05-15 02:40 pm (UTC)The one that did surprise me--and sorry, but this isn't a fun one at all--is someone else I went to school with who is currently in prison. He was convicted of driving the getaway car for some other men who committed a burglary that didn't go as they'd planned and ended in murder. I never would have predicted that in a million years; he was a friend of a friend and always seemed like a nice guy, and I never knew him to be involved in anything criminal. But I guess after high school people's lives can take very unfortunate turns.
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Date: 2026-05-15 04:28 pm (UTC)The story of your high school friend-of-a-friend is very sad. I'm sorry that his life ended up that way.
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Date: 2026-05-15 05:14 pm (UTC)My partner was at university with, and had classes with, Greta Scacchi.
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Date: 2026-05-15 08:07 pm (UTC)I was once quite shocked to see the name of my former coworker in the news as the subject of a high profile corporate espionage case.
But the first thing that came to mind was actually a connection that my daughter has. She went to school with rapper 24kGoldn, who was a year ahead of her.
It turns out I have more than I thought
Date: 2026-05-15 08:56 pm (UTC)(He was an acquaintance rather than a friend, I don't think we were ever in a class together. It was a big enough school that there were quite a few in my year I only really knew by sight).
I was also at university with this Member of the Scottish Parliament. Apparently the guy who played someone called Harry in Holby City was the year below me, but I never met him (and never even watched it anyway).
Last but not least this GBBO contestant is quite a near neighbour.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-16 02:05 am (UTC)In terms of interesting trajectories, the little sister of one of the guys I went to high school with resurfaced briefly and unexpectedly in my life in Victoria as my little niece's neonatologist when she was born three months premature. She is very good, and as I can attest from having seen her in action one day, she has also aged very well and is VERY hot. Another acquaintance from high school is now the interior cedar and larch breeder for the BC Ministry of Forests, a very cool role much more relevant to my professional interests now than I'd ever have expected back then. Her potted history of the survival of western Redcedar in a single refugium during the last ice age (its effective population size is mindblowingly low) is like, one of the coolest things I've heard since I started growing trees!
I also like to think that my PhD in medieval history-to-tree grower career trajectory is an unexpected and surprising one. I, for one, was surprised! Many grad students fantasize about agriculture (what I'm doing is technically horticulture, but handwave), but as far as I can tell few actually stumble into it!