Mathematics

1961-65: Undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Among his professors were renowned mathematicians and logicians: William Craig, John L. Kelley, Raphael M. Robinson, Maxwell A. Rosenlicht and Edwin H. Spanier. 
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Schmidt was awarded:
Martin A. Meyer Memorial Scholarship
General Electric Prize in Mathematics 
Creole Foundation Scholarship (1963-65) 

He obtained his B.A. in Mathematics with honors in 1965 and was elected member of the Academic Honor Society Phi Beta Kappa. 

‍1965-69: Graduate studies at Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass. 

Brandeis University awarded him a very generous fellowship and free tuition during the duration of his graduate studies. 

From the very beginning, he was in contact with Prof. Richard Palais who later became his doctoral advisor. 

1965-66: Prof. Palais invited John F. Nash (A Beautiful Mind) to do research at Brandeis. The first impression Nash gave was strange. He walked down the corridor shuffling his feet lost in his thoughts. He was immediately nicknamed the Zombieby graduate students who did not have any idea of who he was. It didn’t take a long time before a group of graduate students befriended Nash. Some of them went with him to concerts of classical music. Schmidt’s conversations with Nash on mathematics were a great source of inspiration. He admired Nash’s  broad knowledge, exceptional way of thinking and unusual associations of ideas. 
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Schmidt tells a story that happened in an evening of 1966:
“I was studying Serge Lang’s Algebra preparing for my Ph.D. exams that were going to take place in the fall. Around 11.00 o’clock at night, the only people staying in the Goldsmith math building in their respective offices were Nash and I. Suddenly an original algebraic problem came to my mind. I knocked on Nash’s door. He kindly let me in his office and let me write the problem on the green blackboard. His reaction was: «That’s a very important problem. How come I never thought about it. »  Needless to say, I came out of his office with a feeling of well-being.” 

‍1969: Schmidt successfully defended his thesis and obtained his Ph.D. in Mathematics. 

Prof. Palais told Marian Schmidt that thanks to the high level of his thesis, he had a choice between a BenjaminPeirceInstructorship in Mathematics at Harvard University and a Postdoctoral one year membership at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.He also received offers as a researcher at IVIC (Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas) and as Assistant Professor at the Université de Montréal 

Realizing that he had lost interest in mathematics and wanting to return to his adolescent passions for cinema and photography, he declined all four offers.  He accepted an invitation to join Jiddu Krishnamurti in England and teach temporarily at the Brockwood Park School. 

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Ph.D.thesis: Extension of differential operators to Sobolev spaces in globalnon-linear analysis
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It can be ordered  from:Ann Arbor, Michigan, University Microfilms