Kevin Ko ’15 By William Martino When college acceptance letters started arriving last winter, Kevin Ko ’15 could finally take a breath. It had all led up to this: the culmination of four years of papers, projects, all-nighters, Model UN trips, and forensics tournaments. On top of all that, Kevin was spending nearly all of his free time programming and creating new apps. In his college application essay, he wrote about his technological talent and the rewards that followed: “Every hour, every all-nighter, and every failure translated into a considerable amount of revenue. Every sale from my applications and programs paid the bills, the rent, and part of my Xavier tuition.” He had unwittingly become the breadwinner for his family. I first met Kevin at the start of his junior year. He was a student in my AP Language and Composition class, and I remember being struck by his gentle, competitive nature. He was not one to accept easy answers to difficult questions. He was courteous, articulate, opinionated, and inquisitive. In many ways, Kevin embodied all the values we stress here at Xavier. He is a rare breed who exhibits an incredible magnetism and a great potential for leadership. It’s no wonder that he was accepted to all three of his top-choice schools—Harvard, MIT, and Stanford—and that he is now thriving on the West Coast. “Stanford,” he said, “has possibly the highest
concentration of interesting people I have ever met.” And because so much of the college experience includes self-exploration, Kevin relishes the chance to have his personal interests align with academia. His most fascinating class, he said, is a computer course on programming abstractions.
“Xavier helped me realize that I was at the service of others.” Kevin credits Xavier for his ability to adapt to such an academically rigorous environment so quickly, and he is grateful for the opportunities he had to step out of his comfort zone on 16th Street. “I became a more well-rounded person because of the risk-free opportunities [Xavier] offered,” he said. “Xavier helped me realize that I was at the service of others.” When I asked Kevin about his plans for the future, he said they consist of either coding or working with start-up ventures in Silicon Valley. Currently, he is in the process of creating a new app. “Nevertheless,” he confessed, “any plan is subject to change, so ask me again in four years.” William Martino, a graduate of Fordham University and the University of Notre Dame, began teaching at Xavier in 2008.
XAVIER MAGAZINE 17