Ex-Disney star Bridgit Mendler accidentally checked a box on a college application—now she's running a startup because of it

Bridgit Mendler's path from Disney Channel star to space startup CEO started with — quite literally — an accident.

The 31-year-old is the CEO and co-founder of Northwood Space, a company based in El Segundo, California that aims to mass-produce ground stations — otherwise known as the antennae that communicate with space satellites. It's a far cry from her youth spent as a child actor and recording artist, known for roles in Disney Channel shows and films like "Good Luck Charlie" and "Lemonade Mouth."

"While everybody else was making their sourdough starters [during the Covid-19 pandemic], we were building antennas out of random crap we could find at Home Depot ... and receiving data from [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] satellites," Mendler told CNBC on Monday while announcing her startup.

Mendler was still acting on screen as recently as 2019 — but her new career path began more than a decade ago, when she unintentionally marked a box on her University of Southern California college application.

"I'm studying anthropology," Mendler told ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in 2015. "But it was an accident ... I was doing the application all on my own. I think I didn't really understand how it worked. I put down like five different things that I would potentially want to be in as a major, and I got my acceptance letter, and it's like, 'You're in anthropology.'"

The educational field resonated with her: She graduated from USC in 2016, and parlayed her anthropology degree into a master's degree in humanity and technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018.

Earlier this year, she completed programs at the MIT Media Lab and Harvard Law School, obtaining a technology-focused PhD and a juris doctor degree.