Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Jack Obergfell asks You mentioned having a degree in mathematics. Do you have any other ones? I think you mentioned some other ones at one point or another.

During my original undergraduate tenure, I had a triple major in mathematics, economics, and political science. This sounds more impressive than it was because it was largely a matter of efficient scheduling.

I was able to use courses in each department as electives in the other departments to pull it off. My primary focus was economics and mathematics, and political science was mostly to pad by grade point average.

On top of all that, I actually spent a lot of my time traveling around the country competing at academic debate tournaments. As I’ve said many times before, debate probably did more to prepare me for doing this podcast than anything else I’ve ever done.

Years later, after I sold a business, I went back to school to study geology and geophysics. Technically, I’m a few credits shy of getting a degree in these subjects because I had a case of vertigo that prevented me from attending classes my last semester, and by that time I realized I wasn’t going to pursue a career in academia, and and come up with the plan to travel around the world.

I have no desire to go back and get the final few credits in geology because I don’t really care too much about the credentials. I care more about learning than I do the piece of paper.

On top of that, via self study, I’ve probably easily, gotten the equivalent of a bachelors degree in history, just from all the writing and research I’ve had to do for this podcast.

Granted, what I write isn’t the equivalent of an academic research paper, but I’ve also written vastly more than your average undergraduate would ever have to write. I’d call it a wash, but I’m sure a professor of history would probably disagree.