ROLLA (AP) – A zombie apocalypse is helping Missouri University of Science and Technology students prepare for careers in engineering and management.

Associate professor Ivan Guardiola says shows like “The Walking Dead” were really popular when he developed a zombie doomsday scenario for a fall 2012 course called Operations Research. Missouri S&T says Guardiola described the results in the September 2014 issue of Quality Approaches in Higher Education.

Through the exercise, Guardiola’s students were asked to envision a zombie invasion that killed everyone but the 21 students enrolled in the course.

They take refuge in the campus’s student center, while some 450 living dead approach their enclave. A manual guides students through a series of situations and options that require them to determine the best choices for their own and their classmates’ survival.