"...the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting"
     - (Plutarch Essays)

The rest is a commentary on this primary goal.

Make progress towards independence

• Define problems rather than have them handed to you
• Gain comfort in reading research articles
• Take control over your own education

Learn to build your own insights

• Distinguish between observations and mere assertions
• Go through the slow process of achieving an insight
• Use concepts in their natural contexts

Gain a grasp of fundamental molecular biology

• Needed as a basis for biology as it is practiced today
• Needed as a basis for bioinformatics

Arguably, the most important function of a college education isn't to get a degree, nor to get you a job next year, but to help prepare yourself for the rest of your life. Just as learning to read and do arithmetic many years ago made you a more capable person in all aspects of your life, so can certain higher order skills that few already possess upon entering college.

• Define problems rather than have them handed to you
  If you ever find yourself working a job where all the decisions are made for you, then it's probably a short term job. Prepare for automation to eventually push you to the unemployment line. Machines beat humans in well-defined repetitive tasks, while humans beat machines in fuzzy problems, where insight is required to figure out what the problem actually is. Like any other skill, finding sense in ill-defined problems takes practice. You will have it.
   
• Gain comfort in reading research articles
  The primary literature, for example research articles, is where you can find out for yourself what is known and make your own judgement as to what is true. But research articles are difficult to read. It's much easier to have someone else read them and tell you what is true. Textbooks do this. So does just about everything you read on the web or in newspapers. Then why do you need to read research articles?
  
  I could write for hours on this... In fact, I have. In brief, whatever you end up doing, you will be called upon to make independent judgments (you'll also have the highly popular option of ignoring the call). Independent judgment requires separating observation from prior beliefs, from vehement assertions, and cultural associations. Reading research articles gives you practice in doing this, useful even if you choose never to have contact again with scientific research.
   
• Take control of your education
  Leave school, and you'll find nary a syllabus, nary a multiple choice exam, nary even a grade except in the most basic sense. Whatever you learn will be your choice (learning nothing is also a choice). Can you build your own syllabus to teach yourself what you find you need to know? Can you compose your own exams to assess for yourself whether you know what you think you know? Grade yourself to help you determine your own progress and plan your future direction? If not, then you will stand still as the world about you moves on. What you learn in this class is of lesser importance than gaining the ability to do it yourself.

Learn to build your own insights

(Yes, this is pretty much the same objective as the previous, but it's important enough to state a second time with different details)

• Distinguish between observations and mere assertions
  You might think this distinction is obvious: the first shows you, the second tells you. However, people in this course have had great difficulties in keeping these two straight, no doubt because education as it is practiced generally guides students to have faith in Authoritative Sources. But Nature cares not a whit about human authorities, who in any event are frequently in conflict. Making the distinction between observations and assertions is essential in doing science. You can argue that it is also essential for participating in an effective democracy.
   
• Go through the slow process of achieving an insight
  Most of you have already learned the essence of molecular biology... and forgotten it, never having really learned it in the first place. The deepest and most durable insights come by experiencing confusion and slowly piecing together observations that lead to personal integration -- things making sense in your own way. We'll spend a full semester on material that you have previously learned in a couple of weeks. This time, however, you'll do it slowly, so that you can construct what you know, brick by brick.
   
• Use concepts in their natural contexts
  If you can't use what you know, then what you know is of little importance (or you don't really know it). As much as possible, you'll be given the opportunity to apply concepts of molecular biology in new contexts, sometimes experiments, sometimes hypothetical problems.

Gain a grasp of fundamental molecular biology

• Needed as a basis for biology as it is practiced today
  While some study molecular biology for its own sake, far more use it as a tool in the study of other subjects, e.g. cardiac physiology or marine ecology. There is no field of biology unaffected by the concepts and tools of molecular biology.
   
• Needed as a basis for bioinformatics
  Bioinformatics, like molecular biology, serves all biological disciplines. Most bioinformatic tools rest on concepts of molecular biology. It isn't possible to go deeply into bioinformatics without a foundation in molecular biology.