Name: Nikhil Rajapuram
Age: 18
Birthday: June 3, 1993
Year: 2015
Languages: English, Spanish, Kannada
Major: Bioengineering
Relationship status: Single (he’s also ready to mingle in case you were wondering)
Hometown: Oakland, California
Extracurriculars: Club Men’s Volleyball, Biomedical Engineering Society, University Honor Council, and writing poetry in his spare time.
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Most-time consuming activity: Pondering…I like to sit around and think…
Most embarrassing moment: Over summer break, after I got in to Penn, I was looking for other people from the Bay Area on Facebook and I didn’t want to add totally random people. I came across the profile of someone who got in from the area and had listed Volleyball as an area of interest so I thought it would be nice to friend this girl, who appeared to be posing with her boyfriend in every one of her photos. So I added the girl, whose name was Apoorva (a pretty common girl’s name in India) and wrote a nice personal message (kinda flirty) only to realize later that the profile said “Sex: Male” I was SO confused and later found out that in one tiny region of India, Apoorva is a guy’s name. So I pretty much messaged a guy thinking he was a girl, and now we’re the best of friends.
Biggest difference between East Coast and West Coast: People here do not appreciate long hair. Also everything here is just go-go-go and very pre-professional whereas the West Coast is about enjoying the now, stopping and laying out in the sun, and living in the moment. On the East Coast it’s like living five or ten years down the road.
Ideal vacation spot: After coming to the East Coast I’ve realized that an ideal vacation spot would be home. I definitely love Northern California and the more time I spend away the more I realize how much I took it for granted and how there’s just so much to do that I never noticed before. I’m not a big fan of the typical vacation spots like Hawaii because I love being around people.
Favorite food: I love food…this is tough. I love ethnic food, but I’m also really picky. My favorite is probably a Barney’s veggie burger with eggplant, garlic aioli, curly fries and what I like to call orgasmic sauce (buttermilk ranch) and an Oreo cookie milkshake.
Favorite restaurant in Philly: La Viola on 16th and Chestnut.
Perfect first date: I don’t like the typical classy dinner and movie, that’s not really my thing. It would be more like rediscovering your childhood, doing something you wouldn’t normally do like making pottery or going to an amusement park, or just exploring some new place. Just walking and talking is wonderful.
Best memory at Penn: One of them would be staying up all night in Van Pelt watching The Office with my friend when we were supposed to be studying and then climbing a fire escape to the top of a water tower to watch the sunrise.
What kind of girl do you look for? A girl with a nice smile, who’s intelligent (not just book-smart but clever and quick-witted) and can make me laugh.
Favorite pick-up line: How much does a polar bear weigh? Enough to break the ice, how you doin’?
Celebrity Crush: Zooey Deschanel.
Favorite quote: “Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.” —Albert Einstein