You might not think a television show about a zombie apocalypse could help you prepare for finals.
You’d be wrong.
If you’re nervous or you don’t know how to approach the end of the semester, keep calm and clutch your collector’s edition box sets of the first three seasons of ‘The Walking Dead.’ Here are some of the best finals-survival tips from the show.
1. Have the willingness to survive. You have to know what you need and you have to want to get it.
Did Rick and Glenn want to get covered up in walker guts and dangle themselves in front of a bunch of things that want to eat them to get the group out of the department store? Unlikely. But they did, and were able to save themselves and the entire group.
2. Sometimes seclusion is key. Post-apocalypse, other people are sometimes your biggest weakness. Some will stop at nothing to take your resources for their own. Rick and the group moved way too close to Woodbury to stay safe and look what happened.
There will always be nagging parents, roommates or friends that are going to demand your attention and they don’t always stop just because you say you’re busy. The surefire way to prevent this is to stay away.
3. There is safety in numbers. Sometimes numbers are the key to success. Glenn, Rick, Daryl and the others all have their specialties that make everyone’s life easier. The same can go for the average college class. Maybe someone else picked up on the second chapter better than you did. Use this to your advantage and learn from your classmates.
4. Watch who you let in your group. When you put together a study group, make sure that each person is willing to try and benefit the group. If a person does nothing to help aid the to the understanding of the material, they are unhelpful at best or a liability at worst. Look at Shane. He couldn’t control his emotions and attempted to stage a coup. If he had been allowed to live, he would have killed Rick. What would have happened to the group then?
5. Avoid distractions. In the internet age, much like Rick’s hallucinations of Lori, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr are constantly hanging in your periphery with nothing but sadness and failure in store for you.
6. Don’t procrastinate. Procrastination and distraction are partners in the crime of failure. Don’t wait until the night before the exam to cram three months’ worth of information into your head. It won’t end well for you. Remember Andrea? How she messed around while Milton was busy turning into a walker? Yeah, she died. Let that sink in.
7. Use the right tools. You’ve got Daryl’s crossbow, Michonne’s katana and Merle’s Swiss-Army stump. For killing walkers, these are the tools of the trade.
What about studying? Whip out the flashcards. Put together a mnemonic device. For papers, use the Wright State University Libraries website to gather last-minute scholarly sources for you work. If you’re going to study, do it with the right equipment.
