A class assignment for FYS. By Dakota Grigsby.

1. Survival 101 … Who Makes the Cut?
Scenario:
The Avian Flu has just wiped out the entire planet’s population, except for 13 people
who find themselves to be the only people left on the earth. They manage to all make it
to a safe bunker. In order to outlive the virus, they need to survive 2 years. Only 4 can
be accommodated in the bunker. Eight will have to be expelled because there are not
enough resources for all of them to survive.
If all stay, resources will sustain them for a maximum period of six months.
In the bunker, there are the following facilities:
Explain who you think should live, and present your case to the rest of the group.
Argue for their life unless you want to sacrifice them for the others. Listen to the
arguments from the rest of your group as well, and challenge them to define their
positions.
a. scientist
b. priest
c. married couple who are hippies and drug addicts
d. a single pregnant woman with a 5 year old girl
e. a army officer who has mental instability of some sort but is useful nonetheless
f. an elderly woman
g. a disabled person
h. lawyer
i. lazy welfare dependent
j. doctor

2. k. university professor
It is possible to make connections and describe dependencies between select
individual domains. There may not be clear links between all domains, but with
some deep and creative (aka “critical!”) thinking, one can draw severalconnections.

3. So Who Makes the Cut?
Within our assigned group we took some looks at this project and shared our views on how each
survivor might benefit the group. In our team, we came to the decision to keep the scientist, the 5 year old
girl, the doctor, and the university professor. The doctor, who was a female, was a highly skilled medical
doctor that would have the capability to keep all our survivors healthy. As for the scientist, he has a brain
filled with ingenuity and would be able to create lifesaving tools and could also have knowledge for
growing plants and crops. Our 3rd
choice was the university professor who would help to teach our 5 year
old girl how to read, write and to pass on the abundance of knowledge he has collected. Lastly, we have
the 5 year old girl that would grow up and adapt to the changing world and better understand how life in
the apocalypse works.
However,when the whole class was lead into discussion it started to make sense what we had
done in this project. In this assignment all of us made judgements and assumptions on people we did not
know. Doctors, professors,scientists, drug addicted married couples, even disabled persons were
discriminated against or held to a higher standard than others. As a class, we took those whom we
assumed would be useful based on their career or on a few characteristics we had been given. The
stereotypes that we, as a class, had envisioned in our minds were the determining factors in this project. I
believe that is exactly why we had been given the assignment. For most of us, we go without taking much
thought on all the stereotypes and judgements that we make daily. This assignment shows precisely how
often we do make assumptions and what positive and negative stereotypes that we embed in people whom
we never really know.