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Conan O’Brien Comes to UCSD

“I think it went really well,” Sixth College Student Officer Elaine Branson said. “I think everyone in attendance walked out with a big smile on their face.”

Branson said O’Brien wanted to hold the talk as a question-and-answer session to interact more with students.

“He was really nice to everyone,” Brason said. “We just wanted to make sure he felt how thankful we felt for him to come down, because he did not charge us for his visit.”

According to Branson, tickets for the event sold out just before 2 p.m. on Friday before the show. Event organizers originally intended for the event to be for students only, however tickets were made available to guests on Thursday only after ensuring maximum participation of Sixth College students and alumni.

Sixth College provost Dan Donoghue introduced O’Brien by calling him “the embodiment of Sixth College ideals” and announced that the college will be known as “Conan O’Brien College” every year on April 20.

The red-haired comedian ran onto the stage shortly after Donoghue’s introduction.

“What the hell do you mean it will only be called Conan O’Brien College for one day?” O’Brien joked. “I was under the impression this would be a permanent name change. Tomorrow it’s the Zac Efron Library.”

O’Brien greeted students from all six colleges before giving an introduction. He said he came to share his expertise and experiences with the audience, and said that he was open to talking about topics from media in the twenty-first century, to his life and “the women I’ve been with.”

The rest of the evening ran as a question-and-answer session, rotating between questions from students lined up at a centrally located microphone, and student-submitted questions from a box passed around in line before the show.

O’Brien answered questions about the most attractive person he has interviewed (Angelina Jolie), his craziest college experience (he broke into the Harvard Crimson office with the Lampoon magazine staff to steal the campus newspapers before they could be distributed the next day), what he would be if he wasn’t a television host (a writer or an exotic dancer), to his biggest fear and insecurities.

“You continue to have your problems and continue to be insecure,” O’Brien said. “Every day I go out and do my show is a struggle… I’m absolutely terrified of not making an audience happy.”

O’Brien let an audience member touch his famous hair and gave dating advice to a student — just be honest with her. He also answered questions about people in show business, outlining his “70/20/10” rule — “70 percent of people in show business are really nice, 20 percent are okay and 10 percent are ‘life is too short'” — and referred to “Saturday Night Live” veteran Will Ferrell as one of his favorite people to interview.

“There’s nothing I like more than talking to young people who are smart and funny,” O’Brien said as the evening came to an end.

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