As the newly elected 2024-2025 executive officers of Student Government, president and philosophy-computer science double major Devin Schwartz and vice president and sociology senior Debopreeta Bhattacharya sat down with The Mercury to shed light on who they are outside of their lofty titles, in the viral interview style of Vogue’s “73 Questions.” 

Q: How long do you think you’d survive in a zombie apocalypse? 

Schwartz: Depends. I give it like a week. I think I could survive longer, but I would choose not to. 

Bhattacharya: If I’m in a place where weapons are accessible, two months. I believe that the indomitable human spirit applies to me, and I feel like I can really mess up some zombies if I really needed to. 

Q: If life were a video game, what cheat code would you use the most? 

Schwartz: Infinite lives. I just want to have as many experiences I can. 

Bhattacharya: “One-Hit Kill” cheat code from Mortal Kombat because it would be good in self-defense. 

Q: What is your favorite meme? 

Schwartz: One that I think has kind of been incorporated into my vocabulary too much is the “my brother in Christ.”  

Bhattacharya: I say “what the sigma?” a lot. Or the “umm, actually.”  

Q: You have a time machine. Would you go back in time or go to the future? 

Schwartz: The future, maybe 100 years [from now]. [Going] back in time, there’s some stuff that you can find out, but the broad strokes, we know about. The future, there’s a lot more mystery. There’s a lot more potential to see things that we can’t even think of today. 

Bhattacharya: I would go back in time and ensure, somehow, that the Hype House did not happen on TikTok. I don’t know how we lived through that. Also, I would go back and make sure that a bunch of the men who have podcasts don’t have podcasts. 

Q: If you knew you could stop a tragedy from happening, would you stop it? 

Schwartz: I’d probably want to change things. If everything happens for a reason, then there was a reason for me going back in time and changing it too. 

Bhattacharya: [If] it was an event where thousands and millions of people are dying, I don’t think that happens for a reason.  

Q: What is your biggest pet peeve?  

Schwartz: When you’re walking and there’s this line of people, especially in a hallway. But they’re a little bit too slow and you don’t want to go past them because then you have to do this whole thing. 

Bhattacharya: When people are ignorant and they’re not willing to be open minded and they’re not willing to learn more about what they’re ignorant of,  for sure. 

Q: If you could switch lives with one person for a day, who would it be and why? 

Schwartz: Joe Biden because you cause so much chaos that way. I don’t know how much is going on there [in his brain].  

Bhattacharya: Anyone in the Percy Jackson show, any of the cast, I would want to switch lives with because I feel like that would be such a fun show to act on and be friends with all the other actors.  I’m obsessed with Percy Jackson and I have been for many years. 

Q: Which celebrity do you NOT want to meet in real life? 

Schwartz: So, hear me out. Keanu Reeves. He seems so cool and everyone hypes him up so much that I can never meet him in real life because how are you going to live up to that? 

Bhattacharya: Gal Gadot. She’s just not a good actor or a good person. 

Q: Any last comments? 

Schwartz: (Presidential silence) 

Bhattacharya: I may not be a woman in STEM, but I’m a woman insane.