I chose a degree in Criminal Justice because of my interest in understanding the motivations and behavior of people, especially those in high-stress, high-stakes situations.

While each person’s motivations to commit a crime can vary tremendously, common factors become apparent when looking at the data of a large group of people. Studying the reasons behind why people commit crime, while also having the opportunity to tutor individual prisoners, gave me an incredibly holistic view on the criminal justice system and on people who commit crime. I learned how much macro factors out of an individual’s control play a major role in predicting behavior and it became even more apparent when speaking with the inmates about their experiences. I realized that we were much more similar than we were different and that most of the major differences between the inmates and me was circumstance. 

I found it fascinating how it was much more informative to study macro factors than individuals and this had an incredible impact on my approach to poker. I had thought of poker similar to the majority of people at the time, believing the game was won by being able to better read and predict the behavior of each individual opponent. I realized that by studying data on the aggregate of my opponents, I was able to much more accurately understand and predict my opponents behavior.