Students at the University of San Francisco are challenged to think outside the box. Case in point: the core curriculum. No matter what your unique passion and burning interest are, if you are an undergraduate student pursuing a bachelor’s degree, you are required to step outside your comfort zone and explore areas of knowledge where you would not venture alone at night – or with friends during the day, either.

One of these areas is Applied or Laboratory Science, worth 4 credits. This post is an introduction to BIOL100, or “The Science of Life“, a biology course offered to non-majors. Or rather, it’s a 5-question quiz to check whether you would enjoy this course or hate it. Here it goes:

  1. You find a “bug” in your bedroom. Do you squish it and/or ask your friend to “dispose of” it?
  2. You heard that ostriches hide their head in the sand, bulls become furious when they see something red, or magpies are thieves that go for anything shiny. Do you accept these statements as facts because they come from ancient folklore and popular culture?
  3. Is memory your strongest asset, and you thrive learning definitions, but struggle synthesizing different concepts into overarching ideas?
  4. Do you prefer easy courses that can be ignored for most of the semester, and then cram all you can during a couple of overnight study marathons before finals?
  5. Faced with the choice, you would rather spend an hour in class furiously taking notes from a screen, instead of participating in a conversation or running experiments in a laboratory. Right?

OK, you are done. How many times did you answer yes? If it is more than zero, stop! You have one less course to consider. Do not walk, run away from BIOL100, because most likely you would have no fun taking it.

Since you are still reading, I invite you to try out “The Science of Life” next semester. Chances are that by the end of the course you will emerge with a usable knowledge of the life sciences,  having shed some of the most common misconceptions (yes, including those listed in Question 2 above.)

Check out the Syllabus for more info!

Giorgio Lagna