Tech Alumna Takes on Survivor
By: Sharita Hanley | Categories: Alumni Interest
After joining Tech’s hockey team, the Minnesota native found herself part of a Survivor-inspired game. “My teammates were big Survivor fans and created a Survivor drinking game. They made tribes and split us up into two, and we performed challenges against each other. Whichever tribe lost, voted somebody out, just like in Survivor. We even had a hidden immunity idol that we hid around the house. At some point, we merged and during our ‘Tribal Councils,' we had someone pretend to be Jeff [the host]. We really got into it,” Erickson says.
Erickson took the win the first time she played the hockey team’s version of Survivor. That victory left her wondering what the real Survivor was like.
While at Tech, Erickson studied how centipedes traverse complex terrains and the physics of living systems in Professor Daniel Goldman’s Complex Rheology And Biomechanics (CRAB) Lab. While her research didn’t directly prepare her for Survivor, being a Ramblin’ Wreck prepared her in ways she didn’t expect.
“Tech taught me to overcome challenges. Covid happened while I was there, so I really learned how to deal with the punches as they come. I remember in my quantum mechanics class we only had four students and the professor working together. On Survivor, it’s very similar. You’re starting in a tribe with a few people, and they are the only people you’re hanging out with. The problem-solving I learned at Tech also came in handy on the island.”
Being the only female student to play on Tech’s hockey team also helped. “I play men’s hockey, so I train harder than the guys. I always made sure I was the hardest working one on the ice because I was so much smaller. Hockey taught me to be confident in myself. There are a lot of big strong guys on this season, but I’m used to competing against big strong guys in hockey.”
Although Erickson noticed some similarities between being a Tech student and being on Survivor, there were also notable differences.
“The main one is that I could eat at Georgia Tech,” Erickson jokes. “And the humidity. Both places are hot, but Atlanta has Fiji beat on the humidity.”
As a PhD student at Brown University, Erickson still embodies Tech’s core values of progress and service. “I would like to develop sports equipment. I want to combine my interest in sports with my engineering background and do research and development (R&D) for a sports equipment company.”
See Erickson compete for the $1 million prize on this season’s Survivor.
