{"id":111580,"date":"2017-11-30T14:31:11","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T19:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=111580"},"modified":"2018-07-27T14:54:46","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T18:54:46","slug":"bates-faculty-member-to-appear-on-jeopardy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2017\/11\/30\/bates-faculty-member-to-appear-on-jeopardy\/","title":{"rendered":"Bates faculty member to appear on Jeopardy!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This member of the Bates history faculty combined luck and brains to appear on the iconic quiz show <\/span>Jeopardy!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Who is: Ian Shin?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bates lecturer in history can\u2019t yet tell us much about his appearance, which airs December 12, because of <\/span>Jeopardy!\u2019s <\/span><\/i>nondisclosure rules. But he <\/span>can <\/span><\/i>tell us that <\/span>Jeopardy!, <\/span><\/i>the three-contestant buzzer game where questions become answers, hosted by Alex Trebek, has been part of his life for years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Lecturer in History Ian Shin talks about his upcoming courses during Convocation, the week after he went on Jeopardy!<\/i> (Jay Burns\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

He watched buzzers, bets, and daily doubles with his grandmother after his family moved to California from Hong Kong. He learned some American cultural factoids that way. \u201cAnd then obviously,\u201d he adds, \u201cfor a certain set of really nerdy people, Jeopardy!<\/i> is like nerd Olympics. There is a certain kind of prestige to being smart enough to be on Jeopardy!<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n

So when a few acquaintances competed on the show, Shin decided to go for it. Acing an online test last year got him an audition in New York, which involved another written test and a practice game.<\/p>\n

A couple months later, he got a call from Burbank, Calif. A producer told him to show up for a taping \u2014 luckily, during the one week he wasn\u2019t teaching or researching. Since several episodes are taped each day, Shin was told to bring extra sets of clothes, in case he won.<\/p>\n

At the end of August, Shin flew out West. He hadn\u2019t had time to study intensively, so he spent two days \u201cjust sort of cramming\u201d \u2014 reading Wikipedia articles, relearning the periodic table, and studying up on sports history (the Pittsburgh Steelers, he can now tell you, have won the most Super Bowls). He also went through a database of every single Jeopardy! <\/i>question ever written and every single incorrect answer.<\/p>\n

The morning after Shin arrived, a van took him and the other contestants to the studio. <\/span><\/p>\n

He says the atmosphere was friendly, but \u201cthe previous day\u2019s champion was riding with us, so we were all like, \u2018Oh, he is the real deal.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Ian Shin poses with Jeopardy! <\/i> host Alex Trebek. Trebek, he said, “was very nice and was very charming with the audience.” (Photo courtesy of Ian Shin)<\/p><\/div>\n

After a legal briefing and a rehearsal round, it was time to go. Turns out there\u2019s a lot more that goes into the \u201cnerd Olympics\u201d than knowing a lot of stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n

Multitasking, he says, is key: If you buzz in before Trebek finishes reading the question, you\u2019re subject to a short delay, an eternity in the world of fast-paced, quiz-bowl-style games. <\/span>Jeopardy! <\/span><\/i>players have to juggle hearing the question, figuring out the answer, and hitting the buzzer at just the right moment. <\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a surprising amount of endurance involved. \u201cYou are standing up there for a half an hour, the lights are bearing down on you, you have to have a trigger finger,\u201d Shin says. \u201cThere is a physical aspect of it that I didn\u2019t expect.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

So Shin devised a system. \u201cWhen Alex starts reading the clue, I am going to read the end of the clue to see what the last word is. So I keep that in my mind, and when I hear him say the last word, I will know when to buzz.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Until his episode airs, we won\u2019t know how that worked for him. But he says he made sure to name-drop Bates during the round. And whether Shin was a one-and-done contestant or became a returning winner, he is grateful for his firsthand look at an invaluable part of American pop culture that\u2019s been on TV nearly continuously since 1964.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn an era of fake news and alternative facts,\u00a0Jeopardy!<\/i>\u00a0celebrates being informed and celebrates knowledge,” he says.\u00a0 \u201cIt says, \u2018You know something; come on the show,\u2019 and rewards that. That’s something that I really appreciate.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll take “childhood dream” for $800, Alex. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1005,"featured_media":111642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[165,11398],"class_list":["post-111580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-batesnews","tag-history","tag-ian-shin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111580"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117370,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111580\/revisions\/117370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}