When school gets out for summer break, most kids run fast and away, dreading the return to mind-numbing science and math classes. They go to the beach, seek gainful employment or spend time with their friends. You also probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they spend their time binge watching Netflix.
But, you might be surprised to learn that some students actually stay in school. No, we don’t mean “I failed freshman biology” staying in school – we mean genuine “I greatly enjoy learning and want to further myself in my spare time” staying in school. Strange, right?
Meet Joe Ossoff, entering his junior year at Concord High School after being one of CHS’s top 10 sophomores. He spent almost half of the summer at Columbia University, studying physics. Or, as he’d correct you, Investigations in Theoretical and Experimental Physics.
“It was difficult,” Ossoff said. “I had to pick up a lot of calculus on my own.”
Having only finished sophomore year, it’s likely he’s only barely finished algebra, let alone the beast that is calculus. “The course was definitely designed to carry those who understood as far as possible, not to make sure everyone understood,” Ossoff said.
Evidently, and perhaps improbably, Ossoff understood. Or at least we hope he did, considering the ordeal he went through to enter Columbia’s halls.
“The application was all done online. I filled out forms about different aspects of my academic life, provided a copy of my transcript, wrote an essay and a description of extracurriculars I participate in,” Ossoff said.
This was no summer camp, folks. Camping? No, let’s do math. Fishing? Ha ha nope, let’s map the paths of electrons. Finger painting? I’d rather teach myself calculus. We hope the program was at least easy to get into?
Nope. Ossoff squashed those hopes.
“My classes’ application closed early, so I have to assume there were plenty of applicants,” he said.
Alright, so people didn’t get in. But Columbia is a big school. We’re sure your program was packed.
“My class had 26 students,” Ossoff said. “And each floor only housed 10.”
With an almost college-level application process (and practically college-level tuition), we wanted to know if he’d gotten the full college experience. Ossoff didn’t have much to say on New York’s social scene except that he deeply enjoyed doing labs with his classmates.
“We did a lot of cool stuff. Over the three weeks I was there, we spent most of our time on kinematics and waves. Highlights of labs involved playing with Slinkys, watching electrons orbit, and making music with bottles,” Ossoff said.
For those who’ve been out of academia for a while, kinematics is “the study of classical mechanics which describes the motion of points, bodies and systems of bodies without consideration of the causes of motion.” Or, in other words, super complicated. Geez, are kids these days getting smarter or are we getting dumber?
For our own sake, we implored Ossoff to tell us something about the city that didn’t involve math.
“I went to several museums that I enjoyed,” he said. “There were also really good waffle and ice cream carts.”
Well, we guess that’s what to expect from a summer spent rooming with a guy taking “Programming in C.”
Far be it for us to mock his drive, though – let us applaud Joe Ossoff for being smarter than any high school student needs to be, and hope he uses his power for good. We need people like him to put in the effort that leads to the wonderful advancements of science that keep our iPhones charged and our pizza arriving in under a half hour.
We expect we will one day see Ossoff’s name on the front page. Hopefully with the headline “Man lands on Mars,” and not “Man builds giant laser to destroy Mars.”
