Kittel then entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a chemistry major before switching to physics.

He transferred to the St John's College, Cambridge two years later, where he obtained a bachelor of arts in 1938.

[2][3] Kittel began his graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison the same year and obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1941, with a thesis supervised by Gregory Breit.

[2][4] During World War II, he joined the Submarine Operations Research Group (SORG).

Many well-known postdoctoral fellows worked with him, including James C. Phillips and Pierre-Gilles de Gennes.