SFSU Welcomes GWAR

In an effort to step up the standards of it's English curriculum, San Francisco State University has made the bold move to enlist the crazed alien-metal band GWAR, which it hopes will better prepare its graduates for the 21st century workplace.

Well, not really.



Courtesy of MyLifeDump:

San Francisco State University had a graduation requirement where everyone in the undergraduate program had to take and pass JEPET (Junior English Proficiency Essay Test). If you failed, you had to take English 414 and pass it with a C or better grade in order to graduate.

JEPET was the most hated graduation requirement on campus. I took the test and passed but I am wondering if I still have to take a writing intensive course within my major to graduate according to newly implemented Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement or GWAR.

GWAR is different from JEPET because you take a writing-intensive course within your major and not a standardized test. This means one more class in addition to all the other classes required for a particular major. SFSU has begun offering GWAR courses Spring ‘09 semester but not all majors currently have the GWAR course.

SFSU's Official Press Release

DIY Biotechnologists - Start Praying

Apparently the new rage is to attempt synthetic biology in one's home, says this article:

Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home
(via the Associated Press)

People with no training and only rudimentary knowledge doing genetic splicing in unregulated lab conditions? Very scary. And you thought genetically engineered food was bad? Please. You haven't been scared s***less until you've seen Joe the Plumber trying to splice vanilla flavoring into E.coli and then injecting it into his Gun'n'Roses tattoo so he can have a scratch'n'sniff bicep.

"We should try to make science more sexy and more fun and more like a game," says Mackenzie Cowell, a 24-year-old who majored in biology in college and co-founder of the group DIYbio which has set up a community lab where the public could use chemicals and lab equipment, including a free Craigslist freezer.

NO. We shouldn't. Science will always be sexy to the hardcore. and it is sexy to stupid people as well... but it should be kept out of their reach, and restricted to people dedicated enough to pursue it. Is this a discriminatory statement? Absolutely not: anyone regardless of background is free to pursue it, but they should be required to obtain the appropriate training and put in the work to get there. There's nothing discriminatory about meritocracy.

I cringe every time I see college kids not using goggles and other safety equipment in lab, and they're actually being supervised and taught proper lab technique. Do you really want untrained individuals to be weilding even more responsability than that, in your backyard?