Peppard then transferred to Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1955. (It took longer than normal because he dropped out for a year when his father died in 1951 and he had to finish his father's jobs.) He also trained at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. While living in Pittsburgh, Peppard worked as a radio DJ at WLOA in Braddock, Pennsylvania. While giving a weather update, he infamously called incoming snow flurries "flow snurries". This was an anecdote he repeated in several later interviews, including one with former NFL player Rocky Bleier for WPXI.