Geography is one of my crazy skills. I know a lot about the world and love learning more.
It started with my father who showed me a YouTube channel called NNAU when I was 4 years old. NNAU had a series of flag challenge videos—giving you 10 seconds to identify 50 or so flags, with all the countries of the world divided into Easy, Medium, Hard, and Extreme. My father and I would challenge each other. He could do Easy and Medium in his sleep, but Hard gave him trouble and Extreme was impossible. When I was 5, I started challenging my grandpa and Uncle Pat—we were equal on Easy, but I started pulling ahead on Medium, and they couldn’t touch the Hard ones at all. I still remember the first flag I got right that my dad missed: St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I felt so proud. By age 7, I had learned all the world’s flags.
From there, I started memorizing countries and their capitals. I never quite nailed every capital city, but I know a lot of them. My dad and I would also do continent quizzes while driving, spending half an hour going over Europe, Asia, and South America—it was our way to pass the time.
Later, I found other YouTube channels like JackSucksAtGeography and Geography Now, which dove deeper into the world beyond flags. I began learning more about each country, their histories, and their cultures.
This love of learning about the world sparked my interest in international politics and relations, and inspired me to think about exploring a career in the foreign service.