LiCata, V. et al
After years of high attrition rates in its prestigious Molecular Biology program, Fartlek University has begun a collaboration with Netflix and Mr. Beast to overhaul the way they select incoming graduate students, called Plasmid Games.
“Everyone we admit seems fine on paper,” said Graduate School Dean Dr. Frontman, “but when you put someone in an actual research lab, sometimes the story changes. So now we’ll be selecting new PhD candidates from an actual laboratory-based competition process.”
According to the Dean, 456 initial applicants will be brought to the Fartlek campus for a week of competitive interview exercises or “games.”
“Our first game is called ‘Fire!’” explained Dean Frontman. “Basically we get all of them started on making a buffer or a salt solution and at some point yell ‘Stop, red light, there’s a fire, exit the building!’ Anyone who actually does exit the building is then locked out and the interview continues with those who stayed – because, you know, they behaved like proper grad students and stayed in the lab in a crisis.”
Dean Frontman, who also goes by the name “Administrator 001”, explained that there are several other challenges the group must then attempt. The number of surviving interviewees systematically decreases after each challenge by ruthlessly eliminating those who fail each time.
Other “games” include:
1) making a highly toxic solution with no protective gear or PPE;
2) group tug-of-war for the only working magnetic stirrer in lab (points off if the power cord gets ripped out);
3) attempting to cut tubing, filter paper, and glass plates with nothing but your own fingernails;
4) finding a DNA plasmid that has been lost in the lab freezer since 2010;
5) curing a major disease by the end of the week.
The Dean further remarked, “We hope this new ‘Plasmid Game’ process will help us select students who will get all the way through their PhD program, and simultaneously will crush the dreams of the rest of them so that they stop applying to grad school for fuck’s sake.”
