Recent Northwestern MBA recipient competes on season 47 of “Survivor”

Season 47 of “Survivor” premieres Wednesday on CBS News Chicago and one of the contestants is going from the busy streets of Chicago to the island of Fiji.
Caroline Vidmar sat down to talk about her experience on the show, which she called a lifelong dream. But does she have what it takes to be the sole survivor?
Vidmar’s obsession with the iconic show started when she was just a kid.
“I started watching ‘Survivor’ when I was 5 years old,” she said, adding, “But where I think my real love grew for “Survivor” is as I got older, and I realized like, wait …happiness isn’t guaranteed. Success isn’t guaranteed, and I loved seeing people persevere through all odds.”
Getting on the show has been a lifetime goal for Vidmar. She even planned her education around it. She used to be a California girl, until she moved to Chicago for business school at Northwestern University.
“It has been by far my favorite place I have ever lived,” she said.
It was at Northwestern that Vidmar chose classes to help her compete not just in her career as a strategy consultant, but also as a future cast member of “Survivor.”
“So I’m taking classes such as ‘Selling yourself and your ideas,’ ‘Power and organizations,'” she said. “And another class that helped me a ton was ‘Moral complexity and leadership.'”
And outside the classroom, Vidmar trained physically to the extreme.
“You’re trying to put on a bunch of muscle, but you also want to put on as much fat as you can, because that’s your energy stores,” she said. “So I was like intermittent fasting for like 16 hours, everything nutritionists don’t tell you to do. So I concocted like a 1,500 calorie shake to bulk that I’d drink at midnight.”
She even made a 50-page strategy guide she read day and night. But don’t let her smile fool you, Vidmar said.
Reporter: “Just sitting here with you, beautiful smile, bubbly, seems kind, but there’s another side of you and I’ve heard you say you could be vicious.”
Vidmar: “It really surprises people, that people don’t expect that switch in me that I can be very competitive and truly go all out. But I think in certain environments where that’s the name of the game, I’m going to play the game 110%.”
She added she thinks she’s “so gonna be underestimated.”
Reporter: “Is there any weakness you think that you went in with?”
Vidmar: “I can be blunt. I can just lay out all my cards and sometimes that just rubs people the wrong way.”
While Vidmar couldn’t say how she did while roughing it in the wild of Fiji, she said she has no regrets.
When asked to describe her experience on the show, she said it was a “dream come true.”
Catch the special two-hour premiere of season 47 of “Survivor” on Wednesday night on CBS at 7 p.m.