College:
* Studied at Occidental College for two years.
* Transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983
* Harvard Law School from 1988 – 1991.
Work Experience:
* Worked a year at the Business International Corporation.
* Worked at the New York Public Interest Research Group.
* Director of Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago’s far South Side, and worked there for three years from June 1985 to May 1988.
* Consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.
* Worked at a fellowship at the University of Chicago Law School where he wrote his book Dreams from My Father.
* Beginning in 1992, Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School , being first classified as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996
* Illinois State legislator, 1997–2004. Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, and again in 2002. In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one. During his 2004 general election campaign for U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.
*U.S. Senator, from 2005. Obama’s expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004. In July 2004, Obama wrote and delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts. In August 2004, two months after Ryan’s withdrawal and less than three months before Election Day, Alan Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination to replace Ryan. In the November 2004 general election, Obama received 70% of the vote.