Rapid Fire: 21 Questions with Alumni

With Sunyoung Kye, EPIC President ‘16-’17

Sunyoung Kye

Sunyoung Kye graduated in 2017 from Medill. In EPIC, she started as Branding Team member, became VP of Branding Team, and served as President. Currently, she works at Synchrony Financial in their Business Leadership Program for Marketing.

1. What were you doing before this interview? I was at Target buying snow supplies
2. What’s your favorite product? Shu Uemura Eyelash Curler — it’s a Japenese beauty brand; they have great products.
3. What new technology will transform the future? Self driving cars
4. Can you write me a haiku about entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurship; No, I literally can’t do; This is a bad haiku
5. Elon Musk, Larry Page, and Sheryl Sandberg are coming for dinner, what’s on the menu? Something creative but that I’m capable of making. Maybe I’d buy something and pretend that I made it.
6. What EPIC experience is most memorable for you? EPICnic — It was a beautiful day at the beach and bonding with everyone in EPIC. Garrett was grilling and we took lots of pictures.
7. What would you tell your past self while in EPIC or undergrad? Try harder in school. Appreciate my classes and professors.
8. What’s a question you really don’t want to be asked? Write a haiku about enterprenuership.
9. So, write a haiku about entrepreneurship. (See question #4)
10. What’s a class everyone should take at Northwestern? This Spanish-based journalism class. It’s journalism from the perspective of the Spanish speaking community which is a perspective you don’t often get as a Northwestern student.
11. What is success? When you feel at peace with your you’re working on and doing.
12. Last book you read? “Anna Karenina”
13. Quality of life or quantity of life? Quality
14. Favorite social media platform? Snapchat
15. What did you think you were going to do after you graduated when you were a freshman? I was generally really confused. I wanted to work in a marketing agency.
16. Are you more of a hunter or a gatherer? A gatherer — it just seems right.
17. Anything you wanted to accomplish in EPIC or at Northwestern that you weren’t able to? I wanted to have more involvement in Sprout and see it through to the end
18. You’ve been given an elephant. You can’t give it away or sell it. What would you do with the elephant? I love elephants. I would keep it as a pet and ride it to work everyday.
19. What’s something they don’t teach you in college that you should probably know? How to buy a house and what a mortgage is. Being in financial services makes me realize how very people know about financial services.
20. What inspires you? People who are motivated; seeing people who are doing what they want to do and it’s meaningful.
21. On a scale of one to ten how excited are you about life right now? 9 but I’ll tone it down to 8. Ohio isn’t the most exciting but it can only go uphill from here. And my friends are doing great things; it’s exciting for us to visit each other. I’m pretty excited about life.

This article is a part of an ongoing project to gather the thoughts and experiences of past EPIC alumni. If you are a current EPIC member and want to participate please contact Sienna and she can set you up with an alumni.