He returned to Long Island to complete both his grammar-and high-school educations. At Farmingdale High School he developed a kidney disorder, the result of the mistreatment of a prior condition, erythema grave. The disorder prevented him from serving in World War II and also led to his withdrawing for a year from Harvard College, which he began attending in September 1941.
Gaddis remained at Harvard until 1945, when the dean asked him to leave following an incident of rowdiness. Before his departure, Gaddis had begun to think of himself as a writer, especially in connection with his contributions to the Harvard Lampoon. Regarding these pieces, John Kuehl and Steven Moore wrote, "the majority of Gaddis' Lampoon contributions are merely clever, collegiate pieces that give little indication of the immense talent that was to unfold after he left college." Gaddis was not barred from returning to Harvard, but as his possible reinstatement carried with it some restrictions regarding housing, he chose not to return.
After leaving college, Gaddis moved to New York City, where he worked for a year as a fact checker for The New Yorker. Gaddis wrote that he spent the next five years "in Central America and the Caribbean, Europe, mainly Spain, and briefly North Africa before returning to complete the partially written novel finally published in 1955." In a 1978 essay, "In the Zone," Gaddis reminisced about his time in the Panama Canal Zone, where he had gone hoping to find work as a journalist.
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