by Dennis Finocchiaro School’s Open! A New Zombie Survival School, That Is…

…and the best part is: it’s FREE!

With the upcoming season of The Walking Dead just around the corner, AMC has partnered with University of California, Irvine to offer a new class called Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMC’s The Walking Dead.

Faculty members of the university will take turns lecturing students virtually, including experts in the Social Sciences, Physics, Astronomy, Public Health, and Mathematics. Each professor will combine their knowledge with what would really happen in an apocalyptic setting.

Each class will take place the Monday after each The Walking Dead episode, and will include discussion of the show as well. The lecturers will have access to the cast of the series to add another twist on the classes.

While tied into the show, this class will tackle real-life scenarios that include lessons on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, social order and structure, public health and the CDC, and many other topics.

Here is the course description from their website:

“From understanding social identities to modeling the spread of disease, this eight-week course will span key science and survival themes using AMC’s The Walking Dead as its basis. Four faculty members from the University of California, Irvine will take you on an inter-disciplinary academic journey deep into the world of AMC’s The Walking Dead…”

This program is serious. It even comes with student standards:

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Describe how infectious diseases—like a zombie epidemic—spread and are managed

• Apply various models of society and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to existing and emerging societies as a means for understanding human behavior

• Analyze existing social roles and stereotypes as they exist today and in an emerging world

• Debate the role of public health organizations in society

• Describe how mathematical equations for population dynamics can be used to study disease spread and interventions

• Apply concepts of energy and momentum appropriately when analyzing collisions and other activities that either inflict or prevent damage

• Summarize multiple methods for managing stress in disaster situations

I, for one, have already signed up for the class, which starts October 14th, the day after the season premiere, and ends December 20th. And if you don’t really enjoy school, you might be happy to learn the class isn’t graded.

Come back for updates from Dennis on the class and what they’re learning, starting October 15th.