Colleges love coming up with ridiculous courses for students to pay good money to skip. The descriptions for these out-of-the-box classes always seem awesome, but the professors usually try extra hard to make it seem legit. That’s why Michigan State students should be a little hesitant to sign up for “Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse – Catastrophes and Human Behavior.”
Starting May 14 -- the first session of the summer 2012 semester -- students enrolled in the seven-week course will learn how human behavior and nature change after catastrophic incidences -- from the historical to the hypothetical -- through a blend of traditional coursework, online forums and a catastrophic event simulation, which will be in the form of a theoretical zombie pandemic.
Aspects of anthropology, sociology and geology, among other disciplines, will be woven into the two-credit course, which will be scored on a traditional 4.0 scale.
During the simulation, which is the focus of the first week of class, students will be placed in survivor groups and tasked to work with each other to develop ways to survive the zombie pandemic. As the course continues, so will the simulation, but students also will learn about catastrophes like the Black Death and meteor strikes, and the impact these events had on the planet. During the final days of the course, students in their survivor groups will use what they learned and will face the conclusion of the simulation event.
OK, so it’s basically a class about “The Walking Dead.” I pray they don’t have to spend an inordinate amount of time on a small rural farm while the plot drags its feet ever-so slowly.
I’m curious to know a couple of things from you guys. First, would you have any interest in a class like this or does it just sound like a waste of time?
Secondly, I have my own horror story about a class I thought would be an absolute joke that turned out to be the hardest of my collegiate career. It was an elective about serial killers that literally almost killed me. So we want to know if you’ve been duped by a seemingly awesome and simple course that turned into a nightmare.
Drop your horror story here.
