Year: Freshman – Class of 2014
Relationship Status: Single
Hometown: Thousand Oaks, CA
Dorm: Parkside IRC
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Activities: Camping, theatre, magic, fencing
Interests: Philosophy, metaphysics, engineering
Why He’s Our Campus Cutie: He’s multi-talented in a variety of fields!
This cutie has quite a few tricks up his sleeve – read on to learn more!
HC: So how has your first year at SC been so far?
John: It’s been good – meeting people and getting to college, basically getting out of high school. The bad things? The death of Four Loko.
HC: We’ve heard great tales about your magicianship. Tell us how you got into magic.
John: There’s a few ways I could go on about answering that. One is that a Magic Club started my first year of high school and it just stuck. The other is that usually people have a reason for getting into magic. Mine was to win at every single card game I every played. I wanted to know how to cheat at cards.
HC: So, how well do you cheat at cards?
John: I plead the fifth!
HC: Haha, alright, tell us about how you got into the Magic Castle.
John: The Magic Castle holds auditions two times a year. My sophomore year in high school, my mentor and I talked about me auditioning in March. Not a lot of people get in on their first try but I thought why not, I’ll try. By February, I had a loose idea of what I wanted to do. I worked on a routine. I also toured colleges around this time, finished creating my routine, flew in, and I had my audition the next day. The airlines also lost my luggage but thankfully all I needed to buy was a deck of cards. I had everything else. I auditioned and got accepted on my first try.
HC: That’s amazing! How did that feel?
John: I remember reading the letter of acceptance and smiling.
HC: How are you involved with the magic world now?
John: I go to the Castle once a month for lectures and workshops with professionals in the field. I’m definitely involved and stay in touch.
HC: How has magic helped you?
John: I definitely wrote about it in my college essays. I said something to the effect that engineers have to learn new tricks.
HC: We also hear you’re involved in the fencing club. Tell us about that.
John: It’s pretty cool so far. We practice, go a lot of warm ups, hit each other with swords, and then at competitions we get to hit others with swords.
HC: Your interests seem to be varied. What’s this we hear about you possibly also majoring in philosophy?
John: I’ve always been interested in reading and thinking about philosophy. Nietzschean perspectivism, classical liberalism…the list goes on and on.
HC: As if you weren’t already cool enough, you were also an Eagle Scout. Tell us about that.
John: For my Eagle Scout Project, I filmed WWII veterans. I also hiked 140 miles in ten days. I can start a fire, pitch a tent, build a shelter, and use a gun.
HC: So in the event of a zombie outbreak, you’d be good to know.
John: Yes, unless I become a zombie myself.
HC: Anything else you’d like to add?
John: Remember, remember the fifth of November.