Princeton on TV: Terry O’Shea ’16

CATEGORY: Princeton Celebrities

ANSWER: This current student is a trivia champion.

QUESTION: Who is Terry O'Shea?

Last year, Terry O’Shea ’16 represented Princeton in legendary trivia showJeopardy!, earning the title offirst Ivy Leaguer to achieve first place in the show's college championship, fame for Princeton and a fortune of $100,000. But while these facts are known to the greater Princeton family, not many know about the arduous training and comprehensive selection process required to even be on Jeopardy!,much less become one of the show's champions.

Indeed, the road to becoming a champion is paved with online quizzes.

“When I was a freshman, I took an online diagnostic test that thousands of college students around the country take,” O’Shea said,describing the process of preparing and being selected for the show. “I did well enough on that to qualify for an interview during freshman spring in New York with people from other colleges. I’m not really sure why they chose me from the pool of candidates.”

The diagnostic test was made up of fifty questions from various categories. O’Shea prepared for the test and the show by reading a lot of Wikipedia pages, storing away random facts from her daily life and using a website that archives all the questions that have ever been asked from the show. These archives, O’Shea said, helped the most during her preparation.

“I went through about five episodes’ worth of questions per day for a long time,” O’Shea said. “It went quicker than actually watching the show.”

The “contestant coordinators” of Jeopardy!called O’Shea in November of her sophomore year, and she went to Los Angeles during reading period in January to film the episodes for the College Championship, which aired in February 2014. O’Shea won four episodes (quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals game 1 and 2), beating 14 other college students from around the country. Because O’Shea won the College Championship, she was invited back to compete in the Tournament of Champions in the fall of 2014, where she faced adult champions.

“At first it was very intimidating,” O’Shea said. “But after I got to know everyone, I realized they’re all super intelligent and also very nice and welcoming. And I liked that the college winner from the year before was also there, so I wasn’t the only one who was 20 years old.”

The show filmed five episodes per day, and the contestants would take breaks after every round of the show. During the two-day College Championship, O’Shea filmed the quarterfinals the first day, and then the semifinals and two-part finals the next day, with only one half-hour break in between the semifinals and finals.

Though she spent some time with him on set, O’Shea said that Alex Trebek, the host of Jeopardy!, does not interact that much with contestants.

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“Meeting him didn’t seem real,” O’Shea said. “Plus, we don’t get to really hang out with him. We just shake hands and share our anecdotes with him for a few minutes, and then he goes offstage.”

O’Shea said she found the whole process of being on the show terrifying at first, but was much less nervous by the College Championship finals. After winning the College Championship and moving on to the Tournament of Champions, O’Shea won the quarterfinals before finishing second in the semifinals. Despite coming up short of the ultimate Jeopardy! title, O’Shea had still gone above and beyond what she had imagined achieving.

“My goal was to get into the semifinals of the College Championship, and once I did that it was like I had exceeded my expectations,” O'Shea said. “At that point I knew I could go home and still be proud of myself, no matter what happened.”