It is somewhat inconceivable that a man often dubbed as the “second most powerful man in the United States next to the president himselfâ€, was an undergraduate at the Juilliard School, studying the clarinet. A former member of a jazz band and perfectly capable of playing the saxophone, Alan Greenspan is a name known in every American household, where a staggering statistic of 9 out of 10 American adults are acquainted with who Greenspan is, as opposed to knowing who the Vice President of the United States is.Born to a Hungarian Jewish family on March 6, 1926, Alan Greenspan spent his formative years in Washington Heights, New York. Having an aptitude for numbers, Greenspan was the one who was often left with the bands bookkeeping and his natural inclination towards business was what prompted his transition from studying musical arts to studying economics. Thus, enrolling at the New York University on September 1944, he went on to earn two degrees in economics, graduating summa cum laude in 1948 and attaining his MA in 1950.
