RGU’s team wins second round of University Challenge

A team of four RGU students and alumni appeared on BBC Two’s University Challenge in November where they proudly won against the University of Roehampton. They came back to the show on Monday 9 January to compete in the second round of the challenge, where they once again came out victorious.

Last November was only the second time a team from RGU participated in University Challenge since our first appearance in 1994. Emily, Samuel, Donald, and Faye returned to the show this month and represented the university in the second round of the competition for the first time ever! 

Emily Cullen, team captain, shared how her team felt filming Round 2 before their second televised appearance:

“I think for the second round we felt we could relax into the chair a bit more and really enjoy ourselves because we were just in bonus territory after initially being so excited just to make the televised stages.

“For the first round it almost felt like we were on a studio tour to see the set and ended up answering questions all of a sudden. But by the end of the match we began to have the feeling of “wow” maybe we belong here after all.

"That was all the more satisfying being an underdog university that hadn’t been on the show in so long with a team we’d only put together at the very last minute from the only five people who came forward to do it.

“We say it to this day though that it still feels like we got the best five people in the university to do it!"

After some of them moving away after graduating, the team reunited in Aberdeen to watch their performance on TV. They have now qualified for the quarter final of the competition where their knowledge will once again be put to the test!