Library Student Assistant Excels at Jeopardy!

May 2008--Interlibrary Loan student assistant and senior Danielle Zsenak had the opportunity of a lifetime this spring.  Dani found herself representing Marquette in the Jeopardy! College Championship.  She had always dreamed of being a contestant, growing up watching the intellectual game show and scoring very well at home.  She couldn't wait to turn 18 in order to qualify.

Suddenly there she was, standing in front of Alex Trebek.  "He was very cool," she says with a grin.  "Not stiff or robotic, like stereotypical Canadians.  During breaks he would go into the audience to talk and tell jokes."  Dani had passed the pretest and played a mock game, and now she was in the middle of heated competition with fellow students from USC and Georgetown.  "But we all got to be good friends," she adds, recalling the four days they spent together during the taping of five shows a day in Madison.  "We'd go out to dinner and have fun in our rooms."

A history major, Dani might have been a perfect contestant for this more academic version of the popular game.  Various history and literature categories made up the bulk of the "questions," which are still presented in the form of answers, with many designed to take advantage of the Jeopardy-New York Times partnership.  Asked how she prepared for the challenge, she blushes.  "I didn't.  I was the bad girl. Others had flash cards and books and so on."

She wasn't nervous at all, she says, until local media asked repeatedly if she was.  As a Waukesha native and Marquette student, Dani automatically became the state representative.  Once the games began, her nerves settled down. Buzzing in quickly turned out to be harder than remembering to answer in the form of a question.

Although the competition was held in April, Dani could not reveal the outcome until the shows aired in early May.  She won second place, answering the final question correctly, but falling short of the top dollar amount. Library staff already miss their 3-year student assistant, but join in congratulating Dani on both her Jeopardy appearance and her graduation--Way to go!