Kevin Vo

I never liked Pluto. That hunk of rock has an ugly, irregular orbit, no decorative rings, and no ability whatsoever to sustain life. It is hardly any larger than its moon, Charon, which is so comparable in size that the center of gravity of the two objects is outside of Pluto. Lastly, the non-planet is far away and costs far too much research money to interest a growing five-year-old. Many years later, when the International Astronomical Union deprived the object of its planet status, I threw a small party.

Hi. I'm Kevin. I'm a senior in Columbia College studying biochemistry. I'm sexist, and I'm also a homophobe.

What decides sexual orientation? Scientists have been searching for multiple decades for the genetic determinants that tell people whether they like men, women, both, or none. For example, a University of California, Santa Barbara, study from 2012 challenged the theory of genetically determined sexuality; it claimed that it is not genetics at play, but epigenetics—"marks" caused by things like environmental factors that are known to pass from parent to child. In a nutshell, what your parents experienced in life, or what your great grandparents experienced, might have a good say in your orientation today. The puzzle of orientation biology is hardly solved, but new clues are consistently falling into place.

Meet Craig Venter. Venter is a geneticist and the founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, a private sector company that researches synthetic biology. In layman's terms, the institute genetically modifies the living daylights out of bacteria to make organisms that can produce medications or generate biofuels. The Venter Institute shocked the world in 2010, when its researchers generated artificial life.

As I understand, the Core Curriculum exists because every Columbia student needs a knowledge of philosophy, the arts, literature, and science. In the humanities, ideas from different fields intersect and help students in their own majors. Science is no different—learning a little bit about neuroscience might help a writer better describe a character with depression, just as learning about chemistry might help a future politician make informed decisions about nuclear energy. Frontiers of Science is the course created to benefit us Columbians in such a way.

Back in high school, I took a frustrating computer science course taught by Mr. M. He was funny and he was talented, but his class was frustrating because of what he allowed in the classroom—things like students playing Plants vs. Zombies when they were meant to be completing assignments. In this atmosphere, even the most goal-oriented student would give into temptation. (Pokemon Tower Defense, in my case.)

When I search for personal role models, I think of my childhood pediatrician, a bespectacled woman with sandy-brown hair and a cookies-on-Christmas-morning smile. She was a phenomenal doctor, but more importantly, she saw intelligence in children she worked with. She spoke to me in the language of pathology —inflammation, antibody response, programmed cell death, and never gave me the cloying superiority that I received from most adults.

I went to a "public" high school. It was a tuition-free school, but since property values for homes in the district skyrocketed, the vast majority of my graduating class was upper middle-class, and white or Asian. We had a brand of ambition that overpowered the need to eat properly, develop socially, and sleep. We were smart and talented in the way that school had conditioned us to be—obedient, except for the cheating rings; creative, but only in ways that were socially acceptable; willing to make a difference, but only in ways sanctioned by authority, never to challenge the system. We were confident. We were terrified.

Open a browser and run a Google search for "Ebola." When I do, I find the following headlines: