I found this odd scholarship opportunity recently, and so I dashed off 350 words to see whether I can get $2,000.00 Here’s the instructions: “Imagine that your high school/college has been overrun with Zombies. Your math professor, the cafeteria ladies and even your best friend have all joined the walking dead. Use your brain to flesh out a plan to avoid the Zombies, including where you would hide and the top 5 things you would bring with you to stay alive.” https://www.unigo.com/scholarships/our-scholarships/zombie-apocalypse-scholarship
Here’s my submission:
Zombie Apocalypse Scholarship Submission
It has dawned on me that the nation is gripped with a horrible plague. Tormented by this knowledge, this may be my chance to find help in withstanding this plight. My campus is already crawling with Zombies, and it is likely that yours is, too. In class, when the professor asks a question, the Zombies huddle in the back, passively in their seats, mouths agape, silent. Sometimes I try to remain quiet, not wanting to expose myself, but then I realize the only way to not succumb is to exercise my brain. Occasionally, a fellow student speaks up and reveals their intellect and humanity, and those are the ones I gravitate towards. We refuse to hide.
It is easy to spot the Zombies as they stagger across campus, noses pointed at flat, glowing rectangular devices. I’m comforted whenever I see someone reading a book, and realize that the infection has yet to spread to us all. The Zombies seem to be hypnotized, trapped in a paradigm of consumption, groupthink, and stale ideas. There are even some professors who seem to have capitulated. They promote linear thinking and fail to stoke originality in the hordes slouched before them. Fortunately, I have found sanctuary in the Philosophy department. We are developing the tools necessary to save humanity from the brain-melting disease around us. By always carrying with me my reason, skepticism, humor, compassion, and love of learning, I will resist the siren song of mediocrity. I am determined to survive this apocalypse.
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Then, they allow you to write an additional 100 words:
It is said that many people live their lives fearing death, and by proxy fear everything. By doing so, people go through their lives never having really lived. They are the walking dead. In order to defeat death, all one needs to do is to be alive, living each moment with mindfulness and compassion. As normally portrayed, Zombies are something other than us. They cease being our loved ones and become a nonhuman enemy. In reality, we are the Zombies. We carry that suffering within each of us. I try to live fully, and to help others to be alive.
The Zombie Apocalypse Scholarship winner will be notified by email or phone on or around January 31, 2016. Let’s hope mine wins!