Numbers

101 (Introductory Course)

"101" is an introductory course or something so basic as it should be considered common knowledge.

The usage comes from the organization of courses at colleges and universities by knowledge level with the most basic courses in the 100's and more advanced courses in the 200's, 300's, 400's, etc.

How It's Used

“Like most psychologists of his generation, he began his career looking not at well-being but pathology. He co-authored the standard abnormal-psychology text that’s used in colleges around the country (for the 101 course of the same name, fondly called 'Nuts and Sluts' when I was at school)…”

“For years now, drug-resistant staph infections have been a problem in hospitals, where the heavy use of antibiotics can create resistant strains of bacteria. It’s Evolution 101: the drugs kill off all but the tiny handful of microbes that, by dint of a chance mutation, possess genes allowing them to withstand the onslaught; these hardy survivors then get to work building a drug-resistant superrace.”

“And 'The Showgirl Must Go On,' a career survey offering a sort of Midler 101, is clearly aimed at the masses who flock to this city in stupefying numbers in fervid search of ways to get rid of their money.”

“Every Ecology 101 student knows that Amazonian rain forest soils are fragile and impoverished.  If farmers cut down the canopy of trees overhead to clear cropland, they expose the earth to the pummeling rain and sun, which quickly wash away its small store of minerals and nutrients and bake what remains into something resembling brick—a ‘wet desert,’ as these ruin areas are sometimes called.”

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