 While at university, he became an agnostic; he was sceptical of religious faith, which he regarded as "an effort to believe what common sense tells you isn 't true." He was also disgusted by what he regarded as hypocritical conduct by religious adherents. Towards the later years of his undergraduate years, his unhappiness with religion began to dog him to a greater extent. He tried to become involved with communism for brief period but then resolved to devote himself to scientific research. The length of time required to study medicine had been reduced to five years to train doctors faster following the outbreak of World War I, and Burnet graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery in 1922, ranking second in the final exams despite the death of his father a few weeks earlier. His fellow graduates included Ian Wark, Kate Campbell, Jean Macnamara, Rupert Willis and Roy Cameron, who became distinguished scientists in their own right.
