He wrote in his autobiography that while teaching at Indianapolis High School, "I was also able to spend some time in the Medical College, from which, in the spring of 1875, I received the (scarcely earned) degree of Doctor of Medicine, though it had not at all been my intention to enter that profession." Jordan taught comparative anatomy at the college the following year (1876). The Indiana Medical College in Indianapolis had opened in 1869 and closed its doors in 1878.