10 minute read
Racing Forward
BY LAUREN FILIPPINI (ALPHA CHI, BUTLER UNIVERSITY), MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
You will rarely find Karishma Cordero standing still. A recent alumna of the Alpha Phi (The University of Texas at Austin) chapter, Karishma is always chasing her passions, whether that means jumping out of a plane or exploring the world. You may have been able to watch her live out her passion for travel this year when she was a contestant on The Amazing Race! While she hit a few roadblocks on the show, Karishma is grateful for her experience and excited to see where her passions take her next.
THE RACE OF A LIFETIME
On The Amazing Race, 13 teams of two travel around the world, led by clues and confronted with physical and mental challenges called Roadblocks and Detours in every city they visit. Each leg of the race sees one team eliminated at the end of the episode. The winning team takes home an incredible $1 million prize!
CBS has been airing The Amazing Race since 2001, and Karishma was part of its 36th season. Spoilers ahead – if you want to watch the season without knowing how it ends, jump to the next section!
For the rest of us, let’s rewind to 2022, when Karishma first learned about the chance to be on the show. And what more fitting way to take a lifechanging call about a race around the world than already being across the world from home! Karishma was participating in Semester at Sea, a study abroad program that takes students to multiple countries for in-person learning while taking courses aboard a ship. She got a call from her cousin, Kishori Turner, saying she had an amazing opportunity and asking if Karishma could take a phone call with an Amazing Race producer right now.
“That day she called me, we were supposed to be sailing, but a big storm had come,” Karishma recalls. “When we were sailing, we didn’t have phone service, so this was meant to be, looking back at it.”
A lifelong fan of The Amazing Race, Kishori had originally applied to be on the show with a male friend, but the show’s casting team was looking for an all-female team and asked if Kishori had any sisters or female family members. Kishori immediately suggested her cousin, and Karishma jumped at the chance.
That phone call led to more interviews and testing. While waiting on the final word that she had been cast, Karishma began training for the show. In addition to brushing up on her geography and puzzle skills and learning to drive stick-shift, she wanted to make sure she was in shape for the show’s physical demands. Already having signed confidentiality agreements, she approached an Alpha Chi Omega sister who was passionate about fitness for some help, saying, “I have to train for something, but I can’t tell you what it is.”
The two trained together, went on long runs and did Orangetheory workouts. Finally, a few weeks before filming, Karishma got the call that she had been cast and took a month-long leave from school in the first semester of her senior year. Karishma thought she knew what to expect on The Amazing Race.
“On your couch, it’s so easy to judge somebody because the show is edited down. I would watch the show –that’s what I would do to study – and I would be like, ‘They can’t figure out the simple puzzle; they’re so dumb!’ But then when you’re thrown into the show, there are so many other factors,” she says, pointing to things like the language barrier, the long days with constant running and her nerves that made it hard to eat. “It’s just a mental [challenge] to be able to turn your brain on after you’re exhausted, you’re hungry and you’re forced to do a puzzle in 100-degree heat.”
When asked if she would do anything differently, Karishma laughs and responds, “So many things!” She then elaborates, “If I were to do it again, I would slow down. The thing is, it’s a race, and I was like, ‘I have to go, I have to go!’ But if I were to go back, I would slow down and reread the clues … and maybe let my cousin do a lot more of the tasks than I did!”
Karishma says her favorite country she raced in was Colombia, including paragliding over the city of Medellín, and her favorite memory was a challenge when she and Kishori had to cook traditional Colombian meat dishes.
Ultimately, Karishma and Kishori were eliminated after Leg 5 in Chile. As viewers saw, Karishma stumbled during a few challenges, including having to complete a Roadblock twice after forgetting a key piece of the instructions. But through it all, Karishma and Kishori kept smiling, cheering each other on and having fun.
Returning home after filming, Karishma couldn’t wait to share her experience, assuming that the show would air just a few months after it was filmed like it did for previous seasons. “I was like, ‘Oh, this will be so fun, it’s going to come out while I’m still in college so I can celebrate with all my friends.’” However, the network decided to hold the season for a year and a half and re-edit it due to the writer’s strike! Still unable to tell anyone about the show during her senior year, Karishma says her Alpha Chi sisters had countless guesses about where she had been, everything from competing on Survivor to working in the FBI or CIA. Karishma recalls, “All I said was I had a work trip.”
Finally, the season premiered in March 2024, and Karishma celebrated with family, friends and Alpha Chi sisters at a viewing party. And when the season finale aired, Karishma was able to reunite with her castmates, who she says were the best part of her experience. “We’re just all so close, and I got family out of it.”
AN APPRECIATION FOR THE WORLD
While Karishma says she wasn’t a superfan of The Amazing Race like her cousin and teammate Kishori, her love of travel fit perfectly with the show.
“I work a corporate job, and sometimes you get caught up in a little thing and it’s so stressful, but then you take a step back when you travel,” Karishma explains. “It’s so much of a bigger picture, [and you see] what other
people struggle with on the daily and how I’m honestly just grateful to have work and a roof over my head and the things I didn’t realize were such commodities here. You get such a different perspective of the world … it changes you.”
When Karishma travels, there’s always some element of thrill. On an upcoming trip to Vietnam, she’s hoping to explore via motorcycle, and when she heads to Egypt this fall, she’ll see the sights while skydiving (more on that later!). Her next big travel goal is to make it to Antarctica, the final continent she hasn’t visited, before she turns 25.
Karishma loves exploring new places, meeting new people and embracing new cultures. This respect for and interest in perspectives outside her own made her the perfect person to take on the role of the Alpha Phi chapter’s first vice president diversity, equity and inclusion when she was in college. Starting in 2021, when Karishma held the role, each collegiate chapter began electing this officer to provide experiences, opportunities and space that encourage growth, education and belonging.
“That was something I was really passionate about,” Karishma says. “Being able to mold the position and create it and then see it be taken over was really rewarding for me.”
The positive experience she had in that role and the opportunities she had to educate her sisters propelled her later to apply and be selected for a similar leadership role during her Semester at Sea study abroad program.
Karishma says her Alpha Chi experience connected her to the wider campus, gave her lifelong friendships and taught her skills she still uses today. “I was that person within our house that people could kind of come to for anything, and I could be a friend to all,” she says. “I still take that in my day-to-day life.”
And she almost didn’t go through recruitment! Her first-year roommate asked if Karishma would consider signing up so they could move in early together. The first in her family to join a sorority, Karishma asked the women in her neighborhood for help understanding the process and then gave it a chance with expectations of just “making friends and talking to nice people.” She ended up finding her home – and now shares the Alpha Chi Omega bond with her little sister, Kaveri!
A FEARLESS SPIRIT
Now that the season has aired, Karishma has her sights set on new goals while appreciating the experience that The Amazing Race was.
“It’s so funny when I’m walking down the street and somebody’s staring at me. I’m like, ‘Have they watched the show? Or are they staring at me because I’m sweaty from my run?’” she says. “Obviously when you go on reality TV, you’re nervous about the way you could potentially be perceived, but I think The Amazing Race does a really good job at showcasing who people truly are.”
She adds that it’s been special to receive positive messages from people who watch the show, And there’s nothing like “rewatching this adventure I had with my best friend.”
The Amazing Race has also helped fuel her adventurous spirit! Karishma has a license for solo skydiving. It’s a hobby that started out of a desire to cross skydiving off her bucket list; she was hooked after that first jump and has now thrown herself out of a plane more than 130 times! She even shared the hobby with her Alpha Chi sisters – who, she notes, were always more willing to try skydiving than her male friends. “I would take them in groups … and I would go jump out of the same plane with them. I would say it’s probably over a hundred [Alpha Chi sisters], I’ve taken so many of them.”
She explains why she loves skydiving: “It’s crazy to say, but it really does calm me down when I’m in the plane and I can see everything after the jump. It makes me trust myself. It gives me a lot of perspective and makes everything else in my life seem just so much less stressful. Like, I have to finish this deck or do this presentation for my buyer, and I’m like, ‘Wait, why am I stressing? I literally jump out of planes for fun.’ It’s given me a lot of peace.”
Her goal is to reach 200 jumps by the end of the year, so “I have a lot of jumping to do,” she says.
Outside of more skydiving, Karishma has big dreams, including starting a business around travel and wellness, exploring new countries, and maybe even becoming a pilot one day. But just a year out of college, she’s also taking time to enjoy where she is right now, settling into her job and making time for her hobbies. Just like on The Amazing Race, she’s learning to slow down and appreciate every moment – and the world around her.
Follow along on Instagram to see more of Karishma’s adventures at @KarishmaCordero. She also would love to hear from sisters!
