You Can Take a Class on ‘The Walking Dead’ Sponsored by UC Irvine

UC-Irvine, luckily, has you covered. The school is sponsoring a free online class (called a “massive open online course,” or MOOC for nerdy nerd nerds) based off the post-apocalyptic lessons to be found in AMC's The Walking Dead. Four Irvine professors, all hailing from vastly different disciplines, will teach the class: Zuzana Bic, public health; Joanne Christopherson, social sciences; Michael Dennin physics; and Sarah Eichhorn, mathematics.

From the Huffington Post:

“'The Walking Dead' provides many poignant case studies related to the scholarly areas covered in the course, and it helps that it’s one of TV’s most popular shows,” Bic said in a news release. “There will be something for everyone in this course, which will explore concepts as varied as post-disaster nutrition, the foundations of human survival and stereotypes in a Darwinian environment.”

 

The first course is scheduled for Oct. 14, the Monday after the show's season four premiere. You can enroll at Canvas.net, which provides a little more info on just what you'll learn during the (admittedly ridiculous) eight-week program:

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