Major University to Offer Course on Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

Everyone who goes to college tries to pick a class or two that helps even out their schedule. For every physics course, they take a remedial drawing course. For every accounting course, there is a “pop culture” class where they just watch movies.

But every now and then, one of these apparent “fluff” classes not only stands out to the student body, but ends up getting students around the country talking. This summer through an online course, Michigan State University will be offering  Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse: Catastrophes & Human Behavior.

The seven week course created by Glen Stutzky from the university’s school of social work designed the class as a way to focus on human behavior during crisis situations, taking historical reference from events such as the Black Plague. Stutzky says, “Students will learn about the nature, scope and impact of catastrophic events on individuals, families, societies, civilizations and the Earth itself.”

The course will begin and end with a simulation of a zombie pandemic and have students fit into survivor groups and face challenges to make it out alive while hopefully maintaining their humanity. A great example of this decision making process could be the debate held on this week’s episode of The Walking Dead.

Check out the course promo video after the jump and the course description here.

Though I don’t know if I agree with his choice of having a zombie with glowing eyes in his course promo video, it is great to see a teacher creatively try and attract students to a course that they could learn a new and different aspect to human psychology and social work that hadn’t been explored in such a way before.