Mind you this is a "decal", which are kind of like clubs in a sense, with student instructors that teach classes more for personal edification purposes than "omg legitimate course of study!"
Other DeCals include: The Ethics of Star Trek, Bookworlds: Introduction to Mythological Creatures - Here There Be Dragons, and I Keeps it Real: Race Relations in Chappelle's Show
They do get credit for it though so I guess it's reasonably serious. According to the guy leading the course, there's some high level math involved, and:
"How to get a professor to sign off on a "gaming" class? Well, I did a few presentations, one to the sponsoring professor, to demonstrate the rigorousness, analysis and thought that this class can provoke. Then, I submitted various papers to the dean of the business school. After that, registered with various university offices ... it was a pain, trust me."
I got credit at Berkeley for some pretty silly things let me tell you ;)
Sure, you have to have reasonable content, but for example, I had a friend who led a decal on Asian Soap Operas. Any professor can sign off on pretty much any decal, and she managed to get an EE professor to sponsor said decal, so its not as if the bar is all that high. ;)
still, it's like 1 or 2 units P/NP, so they only count really for the overall 120 unit requirement (though things may have changed in the past 7 years, who knows). when I was at cal, the hardest thing for me was making sure that I didn't go over the max unit limit (if you had > 8 semesters and > 200 units you were booted). luckily, I finished my degrees in four years so it didn't turn out to be an issue.
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Mind you this is a "decal", which are kind of like clubs in a sense, with student instructors that teach classes more for personal edification purposes than "omg legitimate course of study!"
Here's the course list for this semester: http://www.decal.org/courses/index.php
Other DeCals include: The Ethics of Star Trek, Bookworlds: Introduction to Mythological Creatures - Here There Be Dragons, and I Keeps it Real: Race Relations in Chappelle's Show
They do get credit for it though so I guess it's reasonably serious. According to the guy leading the course, there's some high level math involved, and:
"How to get a professor to sign off on a "gaming" class? Well, I did a few presentations, one to the sponsoring professor, to demonstrate the rigorousness, analysis and thought that this class can provoke. Then, I submitted various papers to the dean of the business school. After that, registered with various university offices ... it was a pain, trust me."
So it's not just some crazy whim.
I got credit at Berkeley for some pretty silly things let me tell you ;)
Sure, you have to have reasonable content, but for example, I had a friend who led a decal on Asian Soap Operas. Any professor can sign off on pretty much any decal, and she managed to get an EE professor to sponsor said decal, so its not as if the bar is all that high. ;)
still, it's like 1 or 2 units P/NP, so they only count really for the overall 120 unit requirement (though things may have changed in the past 7 years, who knows). when I was at cal, the hardest thing for me was making sure that I didn't go over the max unit limit (if you had > 8 semesters and > 200 units you were booted). luckily, I finished my degrees in four years so it didn't turn out to be an issue.