Nobel Prize Winner Says He Flunked First College Chemistry Exam

One of the co-winners of this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry revealed that he flunked his first college chemistry test in spectacular fashion.

MIT professor Moungi Bawendi told reporters that when he first arrived at Harvard in the late '70s, he "was used to not having to study for exams" because of his natural intellect. But that strategy proved disastrous on the collegiate level.

"I looked at the first question and I couldn't figure it out, and the second question I couldn't figure it out," the 62-year-old said of his first college test.

Bawendi ended up getting 20% on the exam, which was the lowest in the entire class. And he admits at the time that scoring that poorly nearly "destroyed" him and he was left questioning if he even belonged at Harvard.

"I thought, 'Oh my god, this is the end of me, what am I doing here?'" Bawendi said.

Fortunately, he did not give up, and Bawendi says that after that he "figured out how to study" and from then on, "it was 100s on every exam, pretty much."

Several decades later, Bawendi is now one of the most brilliant minds in the world of chemistry, winning the Nobel Prize along with Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for their work in developing "quantum dots," which are nanoparticles that are "now found in next-generation TV screens and help illuminate tumors within the body," per the AFP.