Complex sentence: After starting college at Cornell University, Bass took a five-year hiatus to build boats, furniture and sculpture in Seattle and Maine and returned to Cornell, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics in 1983.
Split into simpler sentences: After starting college at Cornell University, Bass took a five-year hiatus to build boats, furniture and sculpture in Seattle and Maine. He returned to Cornell and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics and graduated in 1983.