BA in Philosophy

Mark Dundon, 2011

Mark Dundon

Mark graduated in 2011 with a degree in philosophy and a minor in applied mathematics. Although he originally started out as a physics major, Mark switched to philosophy towards the end of his time at Mason because, as he says, "while he was asking the 'big questions of life' like every college student does at one point or another, he figured he could take a 'shortcut' and just go straight for the philosophers and mathematicians who had already done the heavy lifting." Many of those he studied were mathematicians who became philosophers or philosophers who became mathematicians (Husserl, Cantor, Leibniz, Russell, to name a few). He found the mental environment immensely helpful, and especially notes the importance of reading works one disagrees with as a way to discover the questions one is really asking. He discovered a great deal of overlap between his logic and analytic philosophy courses and his math courses, with both helping him understand the other, but credits his philosophy studies as being the engine that has driven all that has since followed in his life.

He is currently working as a financial planner in the area of private wealth management where, in addition to investment knowledge, he is required to integrate a broad amount of information regarding world economic and political news and then balance all of that with the knowledge of his clients as individuals.

While at Mason, he was active with the Catholic Campus Ministry where he was put in touch with a small start-up business in need of mathematical assistance which was being mentored through the Mason Enterprise Center. He later volunteered as a Catholic missionary to work with college students in New Jersey. It was from there, looking over the river to Manhattan, that he put all these pieces together, submitting over 160 job applications in order to secure his present position, one that he finds very fulfilling on many levels.