When Thien An Nguyen ’23 arrived at Texas Christian University as a first-year student, competing on one of television’s most demanding reality shows wasn’t really in the picture. 

Now, six years later, she’s a TCU medical student, putting herself to the test in an environment far removed from the Fort Worth she grew up in and the campus she’s called home for years. Nguyen is among the castaways competing on Season 51 of CBS’ Survivor. 

Long before stepping onto the island, Nguyen said her undergraduate years at TCU taught her how to get outside the comfort zone of her large, close-knit family. At TCU, Nguyen pursued a degree in biology through the Louise Dilworth Davis College of Science & Engineering and is a John V. Roach Honors College Laureate. After graduating, she continued her Horned Frog education at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at TCU, where she is now a third-year medical student. 

She remembers the student who first arrived on campus as almost completely opposite to the person viewers will see taking on the challenges of Survivor. 

“I walked through the TCU doors extremely shy the first year,” Nguyen said. “You could not get a word out of me.” 

But over the next four years, Nguyen found a community at TCU that helped bring her out of her shell. She made friends and found professors and mentors who encouraged her to embrace new experiences and become more confident in herself. 

“I can forever be thankful for TCU surrounding me with the most positive people, the most positive mentors,” Nguyen said. 

The Survival Skill of Tenacity 
Much of that growth happened in classrooms. Nguyen was constantly academically challenged while balancing her biology major with the Roach Honors curriculum. She said it taught her a quality she would eventually carry with her to Survivor: tenacity. 

“TCU undergrad has a very rigorous curriculum,” Nguyen said. “And that’s when I started kind of finding out you need tenacity to make it through school. And that’s the same tenacity I really wanted to test out there on the island.” 

Nguyen said her honors coursework and her major coursework complemented one another, allowing her to explore her curiosity from different perspectives. Biology pushed her to ask questions about the human body and physiology, while Roach Honors encouraged her to think about the communities around her. 

One Roach Honors experience that particularly shaped that curiosity was a class called City as Text. Rather than learning about Fort Worth solely through a textbook, Nguyen and her classmates used the city itself as their classroom, exploring different areas and talking directly with people they encountered. Even as a lifelong Fort Worth resident, Nguyen said, the experience helped her discover her hometown in a new way. 

That curiosity about people would eventually take on new significance when she went on to medical school. 

Thriving, Not Surviving, Medical School 

Nguyen continues to build on the foundation of her undergraduate experience as a third-year student at the Burnett School of Medicine, where she hopes the school’s Empathetic Scholar® curriculum gives her an edge.  

“It is such a useful tool, and it might sound ironic in a game like Survivor  that is so cutthroat,” Nguyen said. “Survivor  is all about surviving, and you have to get to know people. The tools I’ve built through the curriculum, like seeking more information and being curious, I used that out on the island.” 

This season introduces an “open era” twist, allowing every idol and advantage in the show’s history to enter the game without warning. While previous seasons have featured healthcare professionals, Nguyen knows her competitors have studied those past strategies. 

“I’m out there with some superfans who have studied their template through and through,” Nguyen said. 

This season’s cast features diverse backgrounds, including a professional wrestler, a farmer, a baseball executive and a sociology professor, all pursuing the $1 million grand prize and the title of Sole Survivor. 

Nguyen knows others might underestimate her short height and big smile, but she notes that raw physical strength isn’t always a virtue. 

“There have been some who were strong individuals, and that’s a dangerous thing on Survivor,” Nguyen said. “In earlier seasons, strength would propel you to the end. Now, it’s something you try to mask so you can play an under-the-radar game.” 

‘I Want to See What I’m Made Of’ 
Nguyen’s interest in Survivor began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when watching the show brought her family together. 

“It was something we looked forward to watching every single night,” Nguyen said. “I love this game. I grew up very outdoorsy, and my parents were very travel-forward people.” 

As her interest in the game grew, so did her desire to experience its challenges herself. 

“There’s something so raw about Survivor where you’re literally stripped of everything,” Nguyen said. “I want to see what I’m made of at the end of the day when you strip me to the core.” 

As current Horned Frogs watch one of their own take on Survivor, Nguyen is thinking of them.  

“I hope I make the Frogs proud,” Nguyen said. “I couldn’t bring anything, but I brought a lot of purple pride in my heart. I love TCU, and Fort Worth is my home.” 

She also said she hopes they see more than an alumna, a medical student or a reality television contestant. For her, the person she is now is immeasurably different from the incoming student she had been, and Survivor is just an extension of that journey — an opportunity to challenge herself, learn about others and discover what she is capable of. 

“Your end goal of college isn’t just your major degree,” Nguyen said. “It’s truly finding who you are and building upon that.” 

Survivor premieres at 7 p.m. CT Sept. 23 and appears Wednesdays through December on CBS and Paramount+. 

-Justine Arens 
-Prescotte Stokes