Tag Archive: Student Life

  1. Man pretended to be Harvard student for months

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    A 27-year-old man named Abe Liu was escorted out of Harvard’s Weld Hall last week after pretending to be a member of Harvard’s freshman class for months, the Harvard Crimson reported Wednesday.

    [ydn-legacy-photo-inline id=”998″ ]

    Liu, a student at Harvard’s Extension school, reportedly attended North Carolina State but dropped out. He joined Harvard’s Class of 2015 Facebook group this past summer, and began interacting with students and creating a false persona for himself.

    The Harvard Independent first broke the story in a article published online on Tuesday evening. The Independent’s story adds that Harvard’s freshman class was alerted to Liu’s situation on Sunday afternoon via a student-created meme featuring the “Y U NO” Guy asking Liu, “Y U NO WHO U SAY WHO U ARE?”

    The Independent claimed Liu had on occasion told students he was a former Olympian, but he told the paper in a Tuesday evening interview that their facts “were entirely incorrect.”

    In addition to publishing the story about Liu, the Independent’s story calls into question why the Crimson had not yet run a story about Liu. In a follow-up article today, the Independent quotes Liu as claiming that he had personally convinced the Crimson‘s managing editor, Elias Groll ’12, not to run the story although the Crimson had been working on it for a week.

    The Independent has claimed that Liu participated in the Crimson’s induction rituals, but Liu has denied this claim. The Crimson published their story one day after the Independent released their version.

    He has admitted to forging a Harvard ID, but denies stealing another student’s ID.

    From Liu’s interview with the Crimson:

    “The first lie is like, ‘Oh, I’m a student at the College.’ They always want to know more, so you start telling a lot of little white lies. And then you find yourself integrated into that society.”

    “You get so deep, you don’t know how to stop it.”

    “I made a mistake. My mistake was being lonely.”

    “At the end of the day, all I wanted to do was to be friends. The people that met me, the people that knew me, know that I never asked them for anything. I never coerced them into anything.”

    Liu’s Facebook account is now unsearchable, and his posts on the Class of 2015 Facebook group are gone.

  2. YNHH patient inspires bone marrow drive

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    Four out of five Americans of European descent can find a bone marrow donor match. But for those of South Asian heritage, the chances are drastically reduced — one out of 20,000.

    Amit Gupta, the online entrepreneur responsible for websites like Photojojo and The Daily Jolt, is experiencing this disparity firsthand. Gupta, whose family is from Connecticut, began receiving treatment at Yale-New Haven Hospital after being diagnosed with leukemia.

    So Gupta’s friends around the nation are starting a movement to increase the presence of South Asians in the National Marrow Donor Program. For the last three weeks, Be the Match Marrow Registry drives have been held in cities and universities from the West Coast to the East, with multiple events at Stanford and in New York City, Gupta’s friend Aileen Nowlan LAW ’12 said. The registration efforts will soon move to India, with drives being planned at various temples.

    Nowlan, who has helped coordinate the national movement, brought this campaign to the law school on Tuesday from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. Nowlan and Rishidev Chaudhuri GRD ’13, another of Gupta’s friends, alerted members of Yale’s South Asian community about the drive and fed donors with the light North Indian fare of bhajis and pakoras.

    Those interested in donating who missed Tuesday’s event can request a free cheek swab kit at Be the Match’s website.

  3. Two Yalies named ‘top 10 college women’

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    Yalies sure are glamorous. This year, seniors Katie Miller ’12 and Jordana Confino ’12 have been named two of Glamour magazine’s top ten college women in America. The annual competition has been recognizing the country’s most exceptional female undergraduates for the past 54 years, and this time around, Confino and Miller impressed the magazine with their contributions to women’s and gay rights, respectively.

    Miller, a political science major, has been featured in the New York Times and other prominent media outlets as an opponent of the military’s now-repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Upon finishing her degree at Yale, Miller hopes to train as an officer and serve in Afghanistan.

    “I know it sounds corny, but I feel a great sense of responsibility for protecting [this country],” she told Glamour.

    Likewise, Confino feels a similar sense of responsibility to work toward improved women’s rights. Eight years ago, Confino founded a non-profit organization geared toward improving women’s education in developing countries. The group, Girls Learn International, has since grown into a worldwide initiative spanning 84 chapters in the U.S. in support of 31 different classrooms overseas.

    Other Yalies that have been previously awarded this honour by Glamour Magazine are Lily Dorman-Colby ’09 and Oluwadamilola Oladeru ’11.

  4. Shopping period is here

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    Fall 2011 term classes began this morning at 8:20 a.m. (early, right?), which means we’re officially in shopping period. These coming days will be about overcrowded seminars and online section enrollment. Though they might be hectic, we want to encourage you to keep in touch with us as you run around campus. Did a professor say something particularly hilarious or controversial? Was one lecture just so packed you couldn’t even get in the door? We can’t be everywhere at once, but we want to be, so email when you notice something you think might interest us. And keep checking Cross Campus.

  5. Tap Night gets instrumental flourish

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    If you thought tap night already caused a racket … the Yale Precision Marching Band “crashed” the a cappella groups’ Tap Night at 10 p.m. Wednesday, providing a musical backdrop as the various groups rushed from the High Street Gate of Old Campus to track down their top (and pre-tapped) prospects.

  7. The quotable Karl Rove

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    He has a way with words: Karl Rove’s speech at the Yale Political Union Tuesday night was replete with some real gems, including the following …

    On the many uninsured Americans who are not legal citizens:

    “I’m pro-immigration, but I don’t think we should pick up the cost for illegal aliens.”

    On his belief that health insurance groups should be able to form across state lines:

    “Let all the left-handed orthodontists who are Lutherans group together!”

    On the need for medical liability reform in America:

    “We have an issue in health care, but we should have solved it in a bipartisan way.”

    On Obama’s response to Republican calls for liability reform:

    “This was a stick in the eye of Republicans … a disingenuous and dishonest thing.”

    On the bill’s effect:

    “[Obama says] we’re not going to add a dime to the deficits, and he’s right — we’re going to add trillions of dollars in deficits.”

    On the rhetoric surrounding the bill:

    “God. It sounded good.”

    On college:

    “College is a great incubator of political leadership and political spirit. It’s a useful venue for candidates to prepare for political activity to be undertaken.”

    On the YPU Tory Party:

    “I hope you all become investment bankers.”

    On investment bankers:

    “My problem with investment bankers: They invest like Tories, but they donate like Leftists.”

  8. Ringing in the Jewish New Year

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    The Slifka Center’s Rabbi James Ponet ’68, joined by two students, made the rounds to different residential colleges to blow the traditional shofar, a ram’s horn.

    Above, the group made themselves heard in the Davenport College dining hall during dinner Tuesday evening.

  9. Rove kisses foreheads and disses Moleskines

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    Former White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove visited the Yale Political Union on Tuesday night, and his speech on repealing Obamacare drew a crowd that filled the Law School Auditorium.

    But before Rove tore into the country’s current healthcare system, he planted a smooch on the forehead of Progressive Party chairman Jordon Walker ’13.

    During introductions, Walker said that Rove was similar to Progressive Party members in that “Mr. Rove has beauty.” Rove stood up, took a small bow, and then walked over and placed a large kiss on Walker’s forehead.

    Later, Rove directed a comment to Walker: “If you were only 20 years older and an attractive woman.”

    Aside from budding bro-mances, Rove used his speech to explain several other revelations he had about Yalies.

    “I have never before been in a group that was so obviously and clearly pretentious,” he said at the start of his speech.

    “Do you know how I knew it was pretentious? Moleskines!” he said, leaning over to the table in front of the YPU president Conor Crawford ‘12 and picking up two notebooks.

    “The president of the Yale Political Union has two black moleskines! Oh, I’m sorry, a red one! How appropriate is that?”

    The audience erupted into laughter and applause.

  11. CollegeOnly, the new GoodCrush

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    Yalies fed up with prying employers and nosy parents on Facebook might now have a fix: CollegeOnly.

    According to an article published in the Boston Herald on Monday, this latest social networking site only issues accounts to those with college e-mails and prevents potential employers, parents and the greater public from accessing profiles.

    Josh Weinstein, the company’s founder told the Herald that he wanted to recreate the “awesomeness” of Facebook while accommodating college students who do not feel comfortable sharing photos and status updates with their parents and employers.

    “You don’t necessarily go out to parties with your parents and employers,” Weinstein said in an interview with the Herald.

    Launched last week, CollegeOnly is restricted to students at Yale, Cornell and Princeton, but the company’s investors already include Facebook investor Peter Thiel and Softbank, a private equity group based in Newton.

    Weinstein, a 2009 Princeton graduate, also founded the wildly popular GoodCrush, an online dating network, and RandomDorm, an online video chat Web site. Both sites have since been shut down.