Salinger's Valley Forge 201 file says he was a "mediocre" student, and his recorded IQ between 111 and 115 was slightly above average. He graduated in 1936. Salinger started his freshman year at New York University in 1936. He considered studying special education but dropped out the following spring. That fall, his father urged him to learn about the meat-importing business, and he went to work at a company in Vienna and Bydgoszcz, Poland. Surprisingly, Salinger went willingly, but he was so disgusted by the slaughterhouses that he firmly decided to embark on a different career. His disgust for the meat business and rejection of his father likely influenced his vegetarianism as an adult. He left Austria one month before it was annexed by Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938.