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Last spring, Rye Barcott taught a course on ethnic cleansing and genocide at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His class of 12 took field trips to the Holocaust Museum and National Security Council, and was visited by a Holocaust survivor and the U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda. At the end of the semester, after exams and final grades, Rye prepared for his next major undertaking: college graduation.

That's right -- this professor was still an undergrad, and many of his students were his own age (or older!). Rye was one of the first four seniors to participate in the Carolina Students Taking Academic Responsibility through Teaching, or C-START, program, founded the year before by his classmate Kristin Miller and former UNC provost Dick Richardson. The other student instructors were Alex Little, Michal Osterweil, and Claire Taylor, who taught on politics in Northern Ireland, the exploration of identity, and genetically modified food, respectively. Pretty impressive, considering all 15 applicants proposed exciting, out-of-the-ordinary topics.

So what's the 411? The student-instructors gain solid leadership experience, and receive a total of six hours of credit: three in the fall to design their course's syllabus, and three in the spring, when they actually set out to teach. This spring, I'm teaching my own class: "When Food's a Foe: The Bondage of Eating Disorders." My fellow C-STARTers are Durba Chattaraj (whose course covers visual arts in Asia), Jeremy Hurtz (comic books), and Eric Johnson (the role of universities).

Preparing PowerPoint presentations and pop quizzes for my peers is a little intimidating, but then again, students realize I was chosen because I showed some expertise on this subject. C-START is my opportunity to share what I know and to learn along with my class.

I think last year's C-STARTer Claire Taylor worded it best: "This [program] is what I thought college should really be about -- self-motivated students pursuing their interests fully."

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