Princeton
Duchovny graduated from Princeton University in 1982. He was a member of the Charter Club, one of the university's eating clubs. In 1982 his poetry received an honorable mention for a college prize from the Academy of American Poets, and the title of his senior thesis was "The Schizophrenic Critique of Pure Reason in Beckett's Early Novels". Duchovny played a season of junior varsity basketball, as a shooting guard, and also center field for the varsity baseball team.
Yale
Duchovny holds a Master's degree in English Literature from Yale University and began work on a Ph.D. that remains unfinished. The title of his uncompleted doctoral thesis was "Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose."