Never too late: dyslexic ex-rocker turns pre-med at Columbia

[marite]

<p>

As a kid growing up in Wales, Stephen Harris thought about becoming a doctor. But bad grades discouraged him, so he turned to music at age 11.</p>

<p>“I started playing guitar, and it was a practical thing that I could do well,” he says. “Success came when I was 18. I had already been out of school two years and, suddenly, I was on the front page of magazines.”</p>

<p>A bass player sporting long hair, leather and tattoos, Harris adopted the stage name Kid Chaos and performed at Madison Square Garden before he turned 21. The boy who had failed in school flourished on stage, and he toured with bands including goth rockers The Cult and Guns N’ Roses.</p>

<p>But the drive to become a doctor never left him, and he got a second chance after he hung up his guitar. Educators in New York determined he had dyslexia, an inherited condition that makes it difficult to read, write and spell in your native language, despite at least average intelligence. Now, the rocker who once thought himself stupid is, at age 39, on a pre-med track at Columbia University.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051222/ts_usatoday/exrockersdelayeddiagnosisdyslexia[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051222/ts_usatoday/exrockersdelayeddiagnosisdyslexia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[sac]

<p>I read that article.</p>

<p>While I believe it may not be too late for me to become a doctor, I do believe it is too late for me to become a rock star.</p>

[cosar]

<p>You never know where people are going to end up. The drummer for Galaxie 500 (described by Wikipedia as “a seminal guitar band from the late 1980s”) is now teaching Expos at Harvard. Here’s the wikipedia link:</p>

<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxie_500[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxie_500&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>and the Expos link (see description of “Music and its Environment”):</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~expos/descriptions20.html[/url]”>http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~expos/descriptions20.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[marite]

<p>Sac:</p>

<p>LOL! It was always too late for me to be either, and I don’t suffer from dyslexia!</p>

[tsdad]

<p>What are expos?</p>

<p>BTW, I always wanted to be a bass player; the guy who stood in the back of the stage.</p>

[Donemom]

<p>Expository Writing, a mandatory freshman course.</p>