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Eugene Yi ’15

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Yale chapter.

 

Year: 2015

College: Timothy Dwight

Major: Economics

Hometown: Laredo, TX

This weeks’ Her Campus Cutie of the Week is Eugene Yi. Known for his outrageous jokes and incredibly upbeat energy, Eugene can always be seen on campus surrounded by friends. When we first sat down to our interview, Eugene said to me, “I don’t know what took you guys so long,”- and it is true. This title truly belongs to the funniest and sweetest guy on campus.

What’s your favorite dance song?

Yesterday, I’m not gonna lie, I started singing Sweet Dreams… it was my favorite song in like ‘04. It was on the NOW18 greatest hits CD. Eugene then proceeded to break out into song “Sweet dreams are made of these/ Who am I to disagree/ I travel the world and the seven seas/ Everybody’s looking for something…”

The best thing about being in Timothy Dwight College is…

I really enjoy the dining hall staff – they are the nicest ones, besides maybe Commons. They always have my back, even when the days are bad. So I guess the nicest thing about TD is the family. When I was having a bad day, we went together and bought lottery tickets. Also, the first time I met Pam, she said “my name is Pam, like the spray, non-stick” and we were friends after that. And I told Rosanne that she has got some competition with the Commons ladies, so she lets me slide through without ID sometimes. So yea, it is a famILY  (capital ILY for I love you)!

What extra curricular activities are you involved in?

I am in Yale Student Investment Group, Fence, Yale College Council, and Yale Business Society.

How did you come to be such a good investor?

Honestly, investing is the only place where you could be somebody who hasn’t done anything with finance or some guy with a PhD in economics and worked in finance all your life, and yet both of you could still get beat by some random 10-year-old. I have always done well in investing since I was little. Right now though I am getting owned by apple stock – that went down 13% this week. I invested a lot during economics class last year because I got bored in lectures, so my econ grade sucked but I made money.

Describe your ideal first date:

Well first of all, it would have to be the ideal woman: a girl who really enjoys hearing puns. I love puns. So if you can come back to me and tease me with puns or make fun of how I like Pink (the singer), I love that. Then, obviously since I am a gentleman and a scholar, so I would buy flowers and go to her house, or I guess her dorm room, and then walk with her to the venue. An ideal date is one where a girl can see who I am and really enjoy that. If she thinks I suck, when then we won’t go on the ideal second date.

Hmm my best first date… I have been dating Evi for like a year now. So we actually didn’t go on a real date until like a month or two into our relationship because we are always so busy. Our first date I guess then was Valentines Day. I had sent her a singing valentines card, chocolate strawberries, anything you could send to someone I did, just to bombard her. So I guess that was my ideal date – we went to Sushi On Chapel.

Describe your infamous the Gangnam Style photo

Oh that was beautiful. This past semester I decided to do more for Yale and get more involved. So I decided to run for Yale College Council representative for Timothy Dwight. A couple suitemates and I were shooting around with ideas and I thought of P. Diddy’s Vote Or Die Campaign. But then my suitemate told me I couldn’t pull it off. So then we were out of options, but earlier we thought about Gangnam Style and I’m Korean. We were really tired at this point but we decided to go to salvo and get Gangnam Style stuff. Salvation Army was having a 50% off sale. We were killing the women’s maternity section! Everything in that shoot was maybe $6. Grabbed our clothes, put on the bowtie and my friend put on his stuff, but then we didn’t know where to go. We went to a random parking garage but it was really dark. All the photos were terrible. So we went to the roof and that was completely empty except for one corvette – so now we had a great car. So just took tons of photos. There is a video too by the way – never released.

Give me a fun fact about yourself

I was the runner up for LIFE king – so basically I am the just prince of life. (LIFE is a Future Farmers of America organization in Texas.)

What is your favorite party theme?       

I have been trying to have this party theme for a really long time: a volcano party, like the game you play when you’re a kid and you can’t touch the floor. I have had this idea for two years now. Basically we can just put chairs everywhere.

What is the nicest thing you have done for your girlfriend?

The nicest thing I could do is support her in everything she wants to do. I started to care about the environment because of her. One time we were flying to Ireland and I gave her my iPad, and there was an economist article on the screen. So, she starts reading and 5 minutes later is bawling. And I care so much for her. I had no idea what I did wrong. She said, “have you read this article? Can you understand the amount of greed?” (It was about oil companies drilling.) And she was so sad, so I promised her I would try and do everything I could for climate change. So, the other day I went all the way up Kroon Hall in 5-degree weather because she had a YCI mixer for climate change, but not a lot of people were going because it was far and late at night and just so cold. But you know, I went up there, braved the storm all for her.

What is your best pickup line?

I live on the border to Mexico. My city is 97% Hispanic, 2% white, 1% other, and then like .1% Asian – that’s me. So, Any time a Korean dude says something in Spanish, everyone loves him. So I would always hit on the lunch ladies at school and talk in Spanish, so they would give me free food. So my favorite line was “tu eres un ladron porque has robado mi corazon.” (You are a thief because you have stolen my heart.)

Yale girls are best because…

Yale people in general are great because you never know anyone’s story and it is an incredible collection of people. Whenever you talk to anybody, they could have played in Carnegie hall, or something cool. So it is incredible when you talk to a Yale girl, you never know what they have done and you get to find out.