The following article is part of an April Fools’ Edition of The Etownian: the stories are fake the but interviews/quotes are real.

After a long week of classes, you decide you want to go on a road trip with a couple of friends. Just last week, the gas prices were $3.89, and now they have risen to $4.29. You are now contemplating whether the road trip is a good idea. Should you just stay put and save money? How can gas prices change abruptly in a short time span?

Looking through articles that try to explain how the economy works can be confusing. What even is the economy? Who can even decipher the mathematics and graphs needed to understand economics? Well, there is someone who lives in your backyard that has an extreme passion for economics. His name is Dr. Dmitriy Krichevskiy and he is an associate professor of economics here at Elizabethtown College. How did he develop a passion to understand the most perplexing concept of life?

Born in Russia, Krichevskiy did not always have a niche for economics. He did not even believe he could attend college or even be a professor. He held many labor-intensive jobs ranging from working as an electrician to washing cars to working in warehouses and in the hotel industry. Although he worked long, grueling hours in the hotel industry, that was not the sole reason for him to attend college.

“My then girlfriend, now my wife said to me ‘well you seemed to like to read, maybe you should go to college,’” Krichevskiy said.

With the encouragement of his then girlfriend, he attended college. At first, he was peer pressured to study computer science due to a growing stereotype that Russian individuals should know math and computers. He found himself bored and made a life changing decision. He accidently took an economics class and enjoyed it. Insane as it sounds, he actively liked economics. But, why?

Krichevskiy credits his background and past life experiences into making the switch to study economics. Being a refugee, he has had the ability to live in another country that has a different system than the United States and unfortunately watch the system fail its citizens. It was a learning experience for him, and he wanted to understand how and why the system failed.

After he finished his bachelor’s degree, he was looking for a job as an economist in Miami, Fla. He was close, but no cigar. He went for his PhD instead to become a college professor. When looking for a job in his second search, Krichevskiy noted that economists pride themselves on efficiency.

“Economists have a very centralized job market where most interviews around the world happen in the same three days in the same place,” Krichevskiy said.

Etown was calling his name. Located in the northeast, it was a cultural change from Miami that Krichevskiy wanted. He decided to teach here and never looked back.

Ten years into teaching economics at Etown, he has shared many unique experiences. He had students know the textbook better than him and students who did not know what the subject was after two months of the class. His most memorable experience was teaching game theory to a future professional poker player.

Krichevskiy explained the importance of economics, especially microeconomics. “Everything I teach, are very real tangible tools [that can help] improve your choices, job outcomes and hopefully your happiness outcomes,” he said.

Maybe before you read your next article on how the economy affects gas prices, you should try to take one of Krichevskiy’s economic classes. You can truly understand how the economy works and how it impacts your daily life.