While most Georgetown students were demonstrating their knowledge with pens and blue books during midterm exams, Matt Bushell (SFS ’06) was testing what he knew in front of an audience of 3,000, with a buzzer in his hand.

Bushell, a native of Fairfield, Conn., was one of 15 college students from across the country who participated in this year’s Jeopardy! College Championship tournament at the University of Pittsburgh. The tournament, filmed in mid-October, consists of 10 episodes airing on ABC from Nov. 10-23.

The show’s 15 contestants, which hail from a broad range of schools including Williams College, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Missouri and Stanford, competed for a grand prize of $100,000 and the title of Jeopardy! College Champion. The second place contestant wins a minimum of $50,000, with $25,000 for third-place and $10,000 for finalists.

While Bushell did not make it out of the quarterfinals, which aired last week, he still won $5,000 and left Pittsburgh with what he says is an experience of a lifetime.

“It was an awesome experience that I will not forget,” Bushell said.

For Bushell, an avid fan of Jeopardy! for over 12 years, becoming a contestant on the show was a much-anticipated dream.

“The extent of excitement and shock that I felt [upon receiving a letter telling him he was a contestant] was very similar to how I felt when I received my acceptance from Georgetown,” Bushell said. “I was thrilled.”

Bushell said that he used to watch the show nearly every night with his mother, and his interest in appearing on the show ignited when his sixth-grade social studies teacher became a Jeopardy! contestant.

“I always had a knack for the show,” Bushell said. “The `retainment of useless information’ section of my brain was evidently one of the stronger sections.”

Bushell added that he had bought an almanac and watched reruns of Jeopardy! to further prepare for the Jeopardy! College Championship.

In Pittsburgh, Bushell’s anticipation continued as he and other contestants awaited their moment of Jeopardy! fame.

Bushell said that on the day of the show’s taping, contestants had to wait in a room offstage and were not allowed to watch shows in the tournament that were taped before their own. They were not told the order of their appearance until about 10 minutes in advance.

“This was the most nerve-racking aspect of the experience,” he said. “Maybe if I were a bit more relaxed I would have fared better on the show.”

Once on stage, Bushell said that time went by quickly, and the speed of his opponent from West Virginia University contributed to his difficulty in the first round.

Bushell attributed his defeat to a few costly mistakes, including wagering a large amount on the Final Jeopardy question and failing to answer it.

“Immediately after I was definitely dejected,” he said. “My dream of being on the show naturally included winning so to not have won hurt. I still sometimes regret those few key questions I got wrong.”

Bushell said that throughout high school, he had repeatedly entered to be on Jeopardy! Teen Tournament but his name was never drawn at random for a tryout. Once at Georgetown he continued to try to be on the show, and he was selected to attend a tryout in New York last June.

After a series of tests, including a mock Jeopardy! show complete with real buzzers and questions in the form of answers, Bushell was told that if he was chosen to be a contestant, he would be notified by mail in September.

“Very few days elapsed from June to September during which I did not think about this,” Bushell said. “I have wanted to be on the show for a very long time, and that fact that it was an actual possibility dominated my thoughts.”

In the days leading up to the tournament’s Oct. 9-10 taping, Bushell said that he anxiously awaited a call from home saying that the letter informing him that he had become a contestant had arrived.

“When I saw how close it was, I felt some anguish,” he said. “A couple of days later I got a call from home and my mother immediately started reading the letter. I could not believe it was true.”