Brown and White Vol. 132 no. 4

              The Brown and White Vol. 132 No. 4
Tuesday, February 14, 2017 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Lehigh senior to compete on ‘Jeopardy! College Championship’
By EMILY WARD
News Editor
Courtesy of Jeopardy Productions Inc.
Lehigh student Cody Schmalzle, ’17, pictured alongside “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, is going to
be competing in the first round of the “Jeopardy! College Championship.” Schmalzle’s episode
airs Thursday.
See DEPRESSION Page 4
By MADISON HOFF
Assistant News Editor
Feeling sluggish and struggling
to find the motivation to get out
of bed, Lauren Miller, ’18, finds
it difficult to attend class during
the winter.
Although she has had fluctu-ations
of depression since mid-dle
school, Miller said she sees
her depression occur more fre-quently
during the winter than
during other seasons. This time
of year, Miller is one of many who
struggle with Major Depressive
Disorder with a Seasonal Pattern.
Formerly known as Seasonal
Affective Disorder, this affliction
occurs to people during the fall
and winter months due to shorter
days or lack of light.
“During the winter, I sometimes
have to give myself the extra push
to get up,” said Miller, who serves
as the vice president of Lehigh’s
chapter of the National Alliance
on Mental Illness. “Thankfully
it has never affected my school
work, but I have missed classes.”
Doctoral intern Alyssa Boer
said because Seasonal Affective
Disorder is a subset of depression,
the symptoms are the same as
general depression. The primary
difference is it’s seen in dark-er
seasons. It is also seen more
in northern places. Symptoms
include a lack of interest and
changes in sleep and diet.
There are three kinds of treat-ment
for Major Depressive
Disorder with a Seasonal Pattern.
These include antidepressant
medication, therapy from a psy-chologist
and light box therapy.
Light box therapy involves sit-ting
in front of a box of light
in the morning for about half
an hour. Dr. Shamell Brandon,
a staff psychologist at Lehigh,
said consultation with a doctor is
important before light box ther-apy
because it can make a per-son
jittery afterward if not used
appropriately. Brandon said the
light box should be at 10,000 lux,
When Corey Schmalzle, ’17,
found out he was going to be on the
“Jeopardy! College Championship,”
he didn’t turn to the library or ency-clopedias.
He went to weekly trivia
at Molly’s Irish Grille & Sports Pub
instead.
His trivia knowledge will be put to
the test Thursday when his episode
airs at 7 p.m. on WPVI channel 6. The
winner of the competition receives
$100,000 in cash and the first and
second runners-up win $50,000 and
$25,000, respectively. Schmalzle is
the first Lehigh student to ever com-pete
in the college championship.
The chemical engineer said he has
never been a loyal fan of “Jeopardy!”
but one day in late September, he
decided to take a 50-question online
quiz. His scores qualified him for the
next round, and he was invited to a
live audition in New York. At the end
of November, he was offered one of
the 15 spots in the competition.
The “Jeopardy! College
Championship,” which runs from
Feb. 13-24, was filmed over two days
in January. Schmalzle was flown out
to Los Angeles, all expenses paid for
by the show.
Although Schmalzle is not allowed
to reveal how far he got in the compe-tition,
he said appearing on the show
was a great experience. Meeting
the other contestants from around
the country — and the show’s host,
Alex Trebek — was a highlight for
Schmalzle.
“(Trebek’s) dressing room must be
right off stage because one morning,
he poked his head out, and he was
wearing a Hawaiian shirt and under
that, he had a Jack Daniel’s shirt on,”
Schmalzle said. “Definitely not the
look that I would’ve expected from
him.”
Schmalzle was worried there would
be a competitive atmosphere on set,
but he was relieved to find that
wasn’t the case. He said he bonded
with the other students during the
hours they spent in the green room
together.
The contestants weren’t allowed to
have their phones on them or watch
the other students compete. When
they weren’t in a round, the remain-ing
students were isolated from
the set to prevent cheating. With
wild card spots, knowing how much
money their competitors won could
affect the contestants’ gambling.
Every 45 minutes, producers would
come into the green room and take
three students to film their round.
“We didn’t know when we were
going, so it was kind of like the
Hunger Games,” Schmalzle said.
“They would come in and say, ‘You
three, go.’ Every time the door
opened, my blood pressure would
spike for a second.”
Schmalzle said he thought a lot
about what he wanted to say during
his introduction on the show. A lot of
people wanted a shout out, includ-ing
the Molly’s bartender. Schmalzle,
who is interested in going into the
film industry, decided to ask Trebek
for a job instead.
“I told him that if there were any
openings at the Sony set, I would be
willing to fill them,” he said. “I’m still
waiting on the call.”
Schmalzle plans to watch
Thursday’s episode in his fraternity
house, Phi Delta Theta.
He said there might also be a view-ing
party at Molly’s, the place where
it all began.
More than just the ‘winter blues’
Campus resources combat seasonal depression
Anna Simoneau/B&W Staff