Don’t let the fake tans and fist-pumping fool you! The Jersey Shore cast doesn’t just party hard, they also study hard too. A majority of the MTV stars attended college before taking over the shore house in 2009.
“What’s cool is Vinny [Guadagnino] has his degree, but most of us went to college, even though no one knows that,” Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola told Naughty But Nice Rob in 2012. “[Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi] did. I just have one semester left but I don’t know if Nicole finished college. We all are very smart in our own way.”
While Snooki didn’t finish college, she did learn a lot while studying to become a vet tech. “Test me and bring me to a hospital,” she told GQ in 2011. “I can induce an animal, do surgery, do anesthesia and take blood. So if you want to tell me I’m stupid again, let’s go to an animal hospital.” She even admitted to “missing” it. “My favorite part had to be pre surgeries,” she tweeted in 2015. “Loved everything about anesthesia and endotracheal tubes.”
Meanwhile, Vinny graduated college right before he was cast on Jersey Shore. “I was in college for four years … I did political science, and I was going to go to law school, so I was studying for my LSATs and hooking that up. That’s when somebody sent me the casting thing. It happened right when I graduated; the first opportunity that really came my way,” he told Vulture in 2010.
Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is another costar with a degree. He got his Associate’s from Brookdale Community College, which is where Snooki and Deena Nicole Cortese also went to school. “I was always interested in business and at a young age ended up working in the mortgage profession — before the industry crashed,” he has previously said.
Lesson of the day: don’t judge a book by its cover. Or in this case, don’t judge a guido by his or her fake tan.
Keep scrolling to learn more about the Jersey Shore’s cast educational background!