Yale '09ers: Stolen Icebreakers

Colleges & Universities A-Z Yale University
1

<p>I totally jacked these off of the UChicago thread and that OP probably jacked 'em from another b/c they've been floating around but....stealing stolen goods is legal in my book. (Except I made up numbers 6 and 11 myself.)
Anyway, answer these and let's get to know each other!</p>

<p>What is your:
1. dream career, if money were irrelevant?
2. intended major/academic interests?
3. favorite book?
4. nerdiness on a scale of 1-10?
5. guilty pleasure?
6. strangest quirk/fun fact about you?
7. favorite music genre?
8. greatest accomplishment?
9. greatest failure?
10. how high is Yale ranked on your list? be honest.
11: SCEA or RD? </p>

<p>My answers:
1. dream career, if money were irrelevant? An editor or possibly a short-storyist (if that's a word...)
2. intended major/academic interests? Don't know/ Writing, biology
3. favorite book? Can't choose but I'm on a Haruki Murakami jag right now. Nicole Krauss and her better-known counterpart are also good.
4. nerdiness on a scale of 1-10? Compared to my friends/acquaintances, I'd say about a 7 but compared to some people here on CC, maybe a 4-5?
5. guilty pleasure? CC, haha.
6. strangest quirk/fun fact about you? I was basically mute for the first few years of my schooling and then had to be homeschooled for a year.
7. favorite music genre? I'm apathetic towards music (I know, I know, it's unheard of). I'll listen to most types if they're there but I'm not a music connoisseur like most. The same with me and movies for the most part. I'll go if I'm dragged or if they're really really interesting but if not, then I'd rather read.
8. greatest accomplishment? running/jogging five miles for the first time when I was on my school's cross country team
9. greatest failure? Quitting the cross country team after about a week---I just don't have the stamina.
10. how high is Yale ranked on your list? be honest.** Number one**
11: SCEA or RD? SCEA</p>

2

<ol>
<li>Actor/Production Company Owner</li>
<li>Drama, Music, Political Science</li>
<li>The New Arabian Nights (Robert Stevenson)</li>
<li>9</li>
<li>Studying for AP tests :)</li>
<li>I sometimes I pretend I have multiple personalities when I go on walks with my dog.</li>
<li>Classical, Broadway, Pop</li>
<li>None</li>
<li>Too Many :(</li>
<li>1
11: SCEA</li>
</ol>

3

<p>1) television personality, voice actor
2) theater, physics, calculus
3) three way tie between 1984, A Clockwork Orange, and His Dark Materials
4) 10
5) deriving kinematic equations and finding the coefficient of static friction between you and me =P
6) I am the Gay Republican! (srsly)
7) Varies
8) My first major lead role!
9) Freshman Year =[[[
10) Zero. It was number one but I wanted it so much it had to go higher.
11) SCEA BABAY!</p>

4

<ol>
<li>Pediatric oncologist</li>
<li>Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology</li>
<li>Either My Sister’s Keeper or The Monster at the End of this Book</li>
<li>Probably an 8</li>
<li>Chocolate?</li>
<li>One nickname of mine is H.C.-> Human Computer</li>
<li>Pop or classical</li>
<li>Being a CT Governor’s Scholar</li>
<li>Not joining this website earlier than I did :)</li>
<li>Numero uno, baby!
11: SCEA!!!</li>
</ol>

5

<ol>
<li>dream career, if money were irrelevant? combined applied math professor, concert pianist, and author/poet</li>
<li>intended major/academic interests?** haha, applied math, english, maybe music </li>
<li>favorite book? do poetry collections count?</li>
<li>nerdiness on a scale of 1-10? same as OP, i guess</li>
<li>guilty pleasure? cc, gossip girl, gilmore girl reruns, mariokart wii, hot cocoa, vanilla wafers</li>
<li>strangest quirk/fun fact about you? idk, i have this great appreciation for music and theatre in my head. like i can hear things the way they should sound and see things the way they should be, and then not be able to materialize them. it really really bothers me. oh and my friends call me the human GPS, but i’m the only one without a license.</li>
<li>favorite music genre? omg, this is a really hard question. the easy answer would be classical and alt rock, but i guess the real answer is almost everything. my ipod has everything from 2pac to taylor swift to fiona apple to hsm to anberlin to alkaline trio to rachmaninoff to les mis to rihanna</li>
<li>greatest accomplishment? answering this question :)**</li>
<li>greatest failure? not answering this one</li>
<li>how high is Yale ranked on your list? be honest. **to be honest, when i applied, it was tied for first with Princeton (i’m from NJ, you can’t really blame me). but since then it’s definitely moved ahead a lot. i can really see myself at yale, even though there’s more people doing my major at princeton. it’s just so much more… idk. open? **
11: SCEA or RD? SCEA, baby :wink:</li>
</ol>

6

<ol>
<li>dream career, if money were irrelevant? The female Jean Cocteau (your jack-of-all-artistic-trades) or a squawking head on news/talk show (if I was immediately allowed to do anything).</li>
<li>intended major/academic interests? Um…English/Literature/Visual Arts/Engineering/Pre-Med</li>
<li>favorite book? The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (I recommend this book to anyone who likes Nicole Krauss and her better known counterpart - though I prefer Nicole Krauss’s iteration of the book both she and her husband seemed to have written at the same time.)</li>
<li>nerdiness on a scale of 1-10? Depends on who I am. I can probably go anywhere from 1 to around 7 or 8 (sadly, I am not really able to go into the deep, deep forests of nerdiness that encompasses D&D, dressing up for anime conventions, and Civil War reenactment…)</li>
<li>guilty pleasure? Gawker and the accompanied requisite Anderson Cooper stalking</li>
<li>strangest quirk/fun fact about you? I am Filipino by birth, Chinese by ethnicity, Japanese in passing, and American by upbringing (I will let you figure that out by yourselves).</li>
<li>favorite music genre? I tend not to like whole genres because they encompass too much music to be considered either good or bad. The genres that I am currently listening to the most at the moment? What people have been calling “Indie/Indie Pop/Indie Rock” and some Post-Rock. I have been called a hipster…multiple times…</li>
<li>greatest accomplishment? Um…all-nighter? And then going to school? And not crashing until I got home?</li>
<li>greatest failure? Ah the list…</li>
<li>how high is Yale ranked on your list? 1-ish. If I get in SCEA, I’ll probably go (depending on Fin Aid, though my dad has pretty much said he’ll pay for Yale no matter what). If I don’t or get deferred and then get accepted, I don’t know. That decision is months farther away.
11: SCEA or RD? SCEA, clearly.</li>
</ol>

7

<ol>
<li>dream career, if money were irrelevant? Author and professor.</li>
<li>intended major/academic interests? English, history, philosophy, economics, lots of stuff…</li>
<li>favorite book? Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (tied)</li>
<li>nerdiness on a scale of 1-10? Somewhere in the 9-10 range, I think. I am in that D&D forest, I must admit.</li>
<li>guilty pleasure? Hmm… to be honest, I have no guilt or regret about what I’ve done in my life, so nothing.</li>
<li>strangest quirk/fun fact about you? Hmm someone already mentioned acting weird during dog walks, damn. Uh, I play Dungeons and Dragons?</li>
<li>favorite music genre? Rock and alternative.</li>
<li>greatest accomplishment? Winning my league in Public Forum?</li>
<li>greatest failure? Not joining debate until 11th grade.</li>
<li>how high is Yale ranked on your list? be honest. NUMBER 1. As long as I can afford it.
11: SCEA or RD? SCEA, of course.</li>
</ol>

8

<p>hellosail: haha, I will definitely check out that book. :)</p>

<p>EDIT: I like Nicole Krauss better than Foer as well but many (esp. on amazon customer reviews) seem to disagree. (My other guilty pleasure is definitely reading amazon customer reviews after I’ve finished a book. Maybe my nerd rating should go up a point.) Don’t you think it’s strange that their writing is exactly the same yet both so unique?? Someone plagiarized…</p>

9

<p>I actually like Everything is Illuminated the best out of all three of the Krauss/Foer books that I have read. I actually usually list my favorite books as The God of Small Things, Everything is Illuminated, and Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (I don’t know why I didn’t before). However, I was very disappointed with Foer’s second book and when I read the History of Love, I realized that this was everything that Foer tried to do, but couldn’t. I really think the story could’ve done without the 9/11 references. It was almost unnecessary.</p>

<p>As for Nicole Krauss, I feel like I can’t have an opinion of her because I’ve only read one book by her.</p>

<p>I think it’s interesting that a lot of the writers are writing the same. They want to be new and interesting but they end up just fueling the same trends. And I find it interesting that they both choose to write about the same things. Of all the things they could write about in the world.</p>

<p>But as for the book I just recommended, it isn’t really similar to Krauss/Foer vein in that it is about native Indians in India struggling with modernism instead of displaced Eastern European Jewish lineages haunted by the holocaust, but it has a lot of the same themes about love and loss and the forbidden. And it’s pretty emotionally draining to read in that it is a mental exercise to get through all the dense descriptions, unusual structure, and heavy layers, but it’s one of the most rewarding experiences (I feel) I’ve ever had, finishing that book. In the same respect, it’s also a book that needs to be read more than once. My favorite thing about the book is that you get a beginning and an end, the inciting incident and resolution, fairly early in the book and you struggle towards a middle, the climax.</p>

<p>So yeah, I really like that book, but a lot of different people have different opinions on it and I’ve seen people getting very divided about it.</p>

10

<ol>
<li>dream career, if money were irrelevant?
Pilot- but bad eyes, bad physical standards, and probable nausea sickness in a high speed plane.</li>
<li>intended major/academic interests?
I don’t know… something in the humanities. </li>
<li>favorite book?
Harry Turtledove books, and Harry Potter series. </li>
<li>nerdiness on a scale of 1-10?
I’d say 6. Not THAT nerdy but sorta academic type. </li>
<li>guilty pleasure?
You don’t want to know</li>
<li>strangest quirk/fun fact about you?
Nothing really. </li>
<li>favorite music genre?
Anything that’s good… </li>
<li>greatest accomplishment?
Joining this site as early as I did… </li>
<li>greatest failure?
Joining this site as early as I did… </li>
<li>how high is Yale ranked on your list? be honest.
Number 1. Seriously. I’d reject HPSCM, Cambridge, Oxford to go to Yale.
11: SCEA or RD?
ea</li>
</ol>

11

<ol>
<li>dream career: novelist… i would love to be Thoreau for like the rest of my life and just sit by a pond…</li>
<li>intended major: Bio/Poly Sci/History (not all, but those are my options right now)</li>
<li>favorite book: don’t think I have one… I loved James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, Roots! was amazing, and then there are some historical-type books I liked.a</li>
<li>nerdiness: following question one, you would think it’s like a 10, but i would have to say about a 6… not too nerdy, but definitely have some nerdy qualities.</li>
<li>guilty pleasure: house (the show)</li>
<li>fun fact: over the summer, i worked with worms… and it was kinda fun</li>
<li>favorite music genre: by far, salsa</li>
<li>greatest accomplishment: making it through 5 years of football without having a) quit b) died or c) gotten worse</li>
<li>greatest failure: 2nd semester junior year… :(</li>
<li>how high is Yale: it’s either number one or tied for number one… not quite sure (although if it comes down to it, I think I would choose Yale over any other college)</li>
<li>SCEA</li>
</ol>

12

<ol>
<li>A novelist! That is all.</li>
<li>Foreign languages and literature, for now.</li>
<li>Tie between Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”</li>
<li>Literature/English nerdiness: 11. Math/science nerdiness: 3</li>
<li>Laura Ingalls Wilder books and American girl dolls</li>
<li>I can (and like to) memorize entire chapters from books.</li>
<li>Musicals</li>
<li>Davidson Fellowship</li>
<li>My SAT math score. LOL</li>
<li>1!
11: SCEA</li>
</ol>

13

<p>Oh yeah, @ sunshineyday & hellosail: I am humongous Nicole Krauss fan! I didn’t think anybody else on here read her…however, I hate JSF with a fiery passion. See link to my fav. article about him: [New</a> York Press - HARRY SIEGEL - Extremely Cloying & Incredibly False](<a href=“http://www.nypress.com/18/15/news&columns/harrysiegel.cfm]New”>http://www.nypress.com/18/15/news&columns/harrysiegel.cfm).</p>

14

<p>I’m probably the only guy around who’s not applying EA but has Yale as his number 1 choice. :stuck_out_tongue: I couldn’t apply because my school all of a sudden decided that they couldn’t give me any grade reports or anything at all until Jan. So that sucks. Should I tell Yale about it? I mean, I would’ve definitely have applied EA if it hadn’t been for that mess.</p>

<p>Anyway…

  1. electrical engineer designing cool lightbulbs. lol, no, I would love to work with engineering, though.
  2. undecided engineering, prob electrical
  3. i can has cheezburger vol 1
  4. 8 :stuck_out_tongue:
  5. dunno… guess I have a couple but I can’t name 'em
  6. i sometimes eat raw coffe beans for snack+boost
  7. anything that’s dull and boring
  8. getting a 710 cr :stuck_out_tongue:
  9. neglecting my gf, then getting a new one and doing the exact same thing once again. I’m a disaster.
  10. 1
    11: RD</p>
15

<p>I think it’s pretty funny how we’re all these neurotic, high-achieving, “well-rounded” students, and yet the majority of us just want to stay home and be writers. :slight_smile: [myself included]</p>

16

<p>i jacked the thread idea from MIT (for Penn) about 1 week ago lol</p>

17

<ol>
<li>dream career, if money were irrelevant?</li>
<li>intended major/academic interests?</li>
<li>favorite book?</li>
<li>nerdiness on a scale of 1-10?</li>
<li>guilty pleasure?</li>
<li>strangest quirk/fun fact about you?</li>
<li>favorite music genre?</li>
<li>greatest accomplishment?</li>
<li>greatest failure?</li>
<li><p>how high is Yale ranked on your list? be honest.
11: SCEA or RD? </p></li>
<li><p>Mathematician/ particle physicist/ economist while writing for the New York Times lol</p></li>
<li><p>Math-Econ possibly double major in either comp science or english</p></li>
<li><p>Tie, I really loved Slaughterhouse Five- Kurt Vonnegut, and I also loved Ordinary People- Judith Guest. </p></li>
<li><p>9</p></li>
<li><p>I like to yell at random people to see their reactions</p></li>
<li><p>Classical/opera and a then rock</p></li>
<li><p>Sad, probably rising from a 1.5 gpa to a 4.37 (in terms of semester, not cumulative)</p></li>
<li><p>The 1.5 lol- freshman year was hard for me- family issues</p></li>
<li><h1>1</h1></li>
<li><p>SCEAAAAAA!!!</p></li>
</ol>

18

<p>can I change some answers?
I really want to write for the New Yorker or equivalent magazine. Reporting for such a magazine is different from reporting for a daily newspaper and it seems so awesome :slight_smile: I can’t believe I forgot to mention that yesterday.
And for books- I’m currently enthralled by poetry by like… idk Jane Hirshfield and like Wallace Stevens and even like Woodsworth and whatnot. I like Dillard’s short stories and I guess my favorite novel would be Julia Alvarez’ How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents.</p>

19

<ol>
<li>dream career, if money were irrelevant?</li>
</ol>

<p>Writer for sure. Probably short stories, but maybe a novel or two.</p>

<ol>
<li>intended major/academic interests?</li>
</ol>

<p>English, Philosophy, or Political Science lol. I can’t decide.</p>

<ol>
<li>favorite book?</li>
</ol>

<p>Walden by Henry David Thoreau</p>

<ol>
<li>nerdiness on a scale of 1-10?</li>
</ol>

<p>In humanities? 9. In Math/sci? 4. But I still have social skills :)</p>

<ol>
<li>guilty pleasure?</li>
</ol>

<p>Cheesy sci-fi :)</p>

<ol>
<li>strangest quirk/fun fact about you?</li>
</ol>

<p>I’m very loud (as in, if you met me, you’d probably instantly realize that you’ve never heard anyone with a louder voice).</p>

<ol>
<li>favorite music genre?</li>
</ol>

<p>Rock. Specifically Classic Rock (Led Zep, Jimi Hendrix)</p>

<ol>
<li>greatest accomplishment?</li>
</ol>

<p>15th in the country in Oratory (basically public speaking) I told you I was loud :)</p>

<ol>
<li>greatest failure?</li>
</ol>

<p>78 on last week’s AP Calc test? Idk haha</p>

<ol>
<li>how high is Yale ranked on your list? be honest.</li>
</ol>

<p>3rd. (behind Harvard and Princeton)</p>

<p>11: SCEA or RD? </p>

<p>RD :)</p>

20

<ol>
<li>dream career, if money were irrelevant? movie director or tv chef personality</li>
<li>intended major/academic interests? physics</li>
<li>favorite book? crime and punishment</li>
<li>nerdiness on a scale of 1-10? 5 (depends on the day)</li>
<li>guilty pleasure? hmmm eating ice cream (im a runner)</li>
<li>strangest quirk/fun fact about you? i like performing fellatio</li>
<li>favorite music genre? r&b</li>
<li>greatest accomplishment? not losing my virginity (it was hard)</li>
<li>greatest failure? i dont fail.</li>
<li>how high is Yale ranked on your list? be honest. 3
11: SCEA or RD? rd</li>
</ol>