The course codes associate each puzzle with a letter, mapping each letter of their five letters to the puzzles in order as listed on the department pages.
These course codes are:
| Course Codes | Answer |
|---|---|
| Bacteria or viruses | GERMS |
| Gradually narrow | TAPER |
| Insular religious sects | CULTS |
| The way in | ENTRY |
| City-ish | URBAN |
| Creased, or having an inner layer | LINED |
| Enclosed, or reconnoitered | CASED |
If you take the letters associated with all puzzles that feed into a given meta, you will get a set of letters. This set of "meta letters" can anagram to an answer for one of the Things To Learn clues... but with a letter missing:
| Things to Learn | Answer | Feeder Sets |
|---|---|---|
| Renounce a belief | ABJURE | Theological Chemistry + J |
| Rendering worse, through addition | ADULTERATING | Psychoceramics + A |
| Transmitted on a subscription television | CABLECASTED | Anthropology of Computers + A |
| Gives up hope | DESPAIRS | Geographical Textiles + S |
| Sums that fund research | GRANTS | Luck Practicum + A |
| Swiss cereal | MUESLI | Bar Exam + U |
| People who cultivate plants to sell | NURSERYMEN | Applied Criminology + N |
| Silhouettes | OUTLINES | Thermodynamic Zoology + O |
| Track for aspiring doctors | PREMED | Maritime Studies + M |
| Detector | SCANNER | Underwater Basketweaving + R |
| Ornamental lining in architecture | TRACERY | Cubist Linguistics + R |
Reading these "added letters", in alphabetical order of meta title (which is also how they are presented on the Backpack round pages), spells the answer, AN URSA MAJOR.