NFL Player Scores 4.0 GPA in Math in First PhD Semester at MIT

Holy cow! Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman John Urschel recorded a 4.0 GPA at MIT in his first semester of his PhD program.

But it’s actually not that surprising:

He earned his bachelor’s degree in three years at Penn State and spent his senior year working on a master’s degree in mathematics, while being paid by Penn State to teach Integral Vector Calculus Trigonometry.He won the “Academic Heisman” in 2013, an honor given to college football’s top scholar-athlete.

MIT accepted him during the offseason:

He told the American Mathematical Society that reads about math when he travels on his road games, but can separate his schoolwork from his full time job.

“If I’m thinking about math on the football field, this is going to get me killed,” he told AMS.”So that’s just survival instinct. And when I’m doing math, it’s all-encompassing and I’m 100% in it, and there’s really nothing else to think about when I’m doing math,” he said. “I love mathematics, I love the elegance, I love the challenge, and so that’s been natural for me.”

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