Embrace passion and don’t sell out!

Name, School, Major, Hometown: Grace Kaste, Columbia College, History, Seattle.

Claim to fame: Got rejected from CBA and cried about it. Started a poster war about the ethics of selling out. Played the cello.

Where are you going? To get more coffee.

What are three things you learned at Columbia and would like to share with the Class of 2030?

1. Maximilien Robespierre, the leader of the Terror during the French Revolution, was vegetarian for ethical reasons.
2. Adam Smith, supposedly the father of laissez faire economics, only uses the phrase “invisible hand” one time in the Wealth of Nations, and he does not argue that the free market is always beneficial.
3. In 1874, there was a movement of Russian university students, most of whom were the sons and daughters of aristocrats, called the “going to the people” movement (or Narodnichestvo). They sought to go to the peasants in the villages and enlighten them about the ways of socialism, and they were so sure that the peasants would receive them and their ideas with open arms that they did not arrange any other places to stay. To their surprise, the Narodnikis were resoundingly rejected by the peasantry upon arrival. Denounced as elitist atheists, they were offered neither lodging nor food, and had to return to St. Petersburg to avoid freezing to death in the coming winter.

“Back in my day…” There was no University Posting Policy restricting students’ ability to put up flyers around campus, and a human (not AI) voice read graduates’ names on class day.

Favorite Columbia lore? Professor Charles Beard, beloved Columbia historian, resigned in 1917 after declaring that “the university is really under the control of a small and active group of trustees who have no standing in the world of education, who are reactionary and visionless in politics, narrow and medieval in religion.” The Trustees had fired two professors a month earlier for their socialist politics and their advocacy for an early end to World War I. Good thing the trustees learned their lesson and haven’t suppressed any anti-war speech since then.

What was your favorite class at Columbia? History of the City of New York, United States Intellectual History since 1865, Politics of Terror: the History of the French Revolution, Modern Russian History. Any class where I got to watch people’s ideas evolve over time.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? See Epicurus fragment 39

Whom would you like to thank Toe Jam, the Spectator City News team, the students who run Postcrypt, Canterbury, the Morningside Institute (or more importantly, the person I met through it), and everyone else on this campus who is driven by passion rather than pre-professionalism. Thank you for showing me genuine community.

One thing to do before graduating? Go to Hungarian in the evening for dessert, and then have a pretentious philosophical conversation on the steps of St. John the Divine.

Any regrets? I regret the time I spent worrying that I wasn’t making the most of college or that I wasn’t doing enough. But I’ve also come to realize that that feeling is inevitable in a place with so many amazing opportunities, and maybe it’s just a sign that you care.

Grace via Grace