As a teenager, Prigogine was interested in music, history and archeology. He graduated from the Athenée d' Ixelles in 1935, majoring in Greek and Latin. His parents encouraged him to become a lawyer, and he initially enrolled in law studies at the Free University of Brussels. At that time he developed an interest in psychology and the study of behavior ; in turn, reading about these subjects triggered an interest in chemistry, as chemical processes impact the mind and body; this also triggered a more fundamental interest in physics, as they explain chemistry. He ended up dropping out from the law faculty.