He dropped out to become a poet – now he’s won a Fields Medal

Although this article is well-written, I'm not convinced that he was "lost," or that he didn't really like math, based only on a few anecdotal stories. Furthermore, the article says that "he dropped out of high school to become a poet," but please note that, a number of students drop out of high school in South Korea to fully focus on the college entrance exam, in hopes of getting into better universities. This is not uncommon at all. And sure…

It wasn’t the case for him but I’d like people to also note that in Korea, one of the strategy for getting into good universities is to actually drop out of high school and grind for the national exam by going to cram schools (hagwon) People do this because there are certain admission categories where the university only looks at the test results. So they go “okay, by not going to school, my child can fully focus on exam instead…

The title is less surprising if you consider that straight after dropping out to be a poet (in high school) he effectively started getting one to one tutoring from a field medalist for three years in his late teens to early 20s, to practically living with the medalist.