The Office of Student Involvement hosted its brand-new “Survivor” themed event on April 13 after some tweaks to the formula.
The event, based on the Emmy-award-winning 46-season long and counting reality show “Survivor,” was spearheaded by Brandon Carta, student center programs coordinator.
In the real “Survivor,” a group of contestants are placed on an isolated island and given a variety of games testing their physical and mental abilities, as well as providing basic necessities for themselves throughout the game. As the game progresses, contestants vote each other off the island until the “Sole Survivor” remains, who is then gifted a million-dollar prize.
While KSC’s version may not be quite as intense, Carta said the idea of hosting a “Survivor” style event was floated around last year to host the event but it did not come to fruition until after looking at what other schools had done in the same vein.
Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania was one school in particular Carta took note of, as they had been holding a weekly 20-person “Survivor” event.
“We figured ‘Oh, we could do this, this is something we can try out and see if people are into,’ and so our plan for this year was to really just pilot it and see if this would even work,” Carta said.
While The Office of Student Involvement initially looked to get 20 participants split into four teams with one ultimate winner, there ended up being a total of 11 contestants, according to an April 10 post by student involvement.
Initially, student involvement looked to host the first day of games with only 10 of the 20 players moving onto the second day on April 27, but due to the lower number of contestants, Carta decided to host the entirety of the event on the 13th.
Carta said Saturday’s event went well overall and it allowed him to figure out what aspects needed improvement, such as structure and timeframe.
“In the fall, we might do it as either little two-hour segments, so either four two-hour segments if we have 10 players or double that if we have 20 and do it over the course of the semester I think that might work better,” Carta said.
Carta noted holding the event in the fall might boost interest, as opposed to being held toward the latter half of the spring semester near commencement.
While the event did conclude and one sole survivor prevailed, Carta said he could not disclose the winner because of the office’s plan to release the footage of the event over the summer, similar to the show.
“Our plan is to take a bunch of videos and then over the summer release them like a weekly episode, so I’m hoping we’re able to do that. I think it’ll depend on some of our student staff over the summer and if we have the capacity,” Carta said.
Much like the real show, Carta said there would be a counselor on standby for those who get voted off the game.
Additionally, each group has its own “Base,” or room in the student center and will travel to the recreation center for games, and will hold “Hootie’s Council” meetings in the Night Owl Café.
Junior Fiona Acton was one of the first contestants announced by student involvement. She said she learned about the event from the office’s Instagram page.
“I was kind of skeptical at first, I was like ‘What is this?’ and then I looked into it and then I saw that there was a 250 dollar prize which was very appealing to me,” Acton said. “I saw that I was also going to be competing against other people so I thought that would be a cool challenge to do and put myself out there and get out of my shell and just do something I haven’t done before,” she added.
Acton said she did try to enlist her friends in the game, but was met with reluctance.
“It can definitely be a little scary at first because it didn’t really specify what activities we would be doing, so I can see why some people are nervous to sign up for something like that but I think it’s cool to get out of your comfort zone and try something new,” Acton said.
She said her previous success in another student involvement-led activity makes her confident in taking home the win and that if given the cash prize, she plans to go on a shopping spree or a dinner out with friends.
Senior Eric Brodie was also announced among the first contestants in the April 2 Instagram post.
“I always used to watch ‘Survivor’ as a kid growing up so I just thought it would be something nice to do towards the end of the year,” Brodie said.
Brodie said it was possible the lower number of contestants in this pilot year could be because of the element of surprise, which is also present in the real “Survivor” show, as well as finals week coming up.
Numbers or not, Brodie said he was looking forward to participating and plans to send the possible prize money to his savings, or on a dinner with his girlfriend.
“I don’t know about confidence but I’m real excited for it,” Brodie said.
Nathan Hope can be contacted at
nhope@kscequinox.com
