Kym Perfetto (right), an alumna from this university, works with teammate Alli Forsythe (left) during an episode of the CBS TV Show, Amazing Race.

As a part of the final five teams on the CBS TV show The Amazing Race, a university alumna and her teammate traveled the world together from New York City to Singapore, completing challenges along the way.

Kym Perfetto, who graduated in 2002 from the theatre department, teamed up with her friend and now roommate Alli Forsythe to form an all-female archetype for the show: the cyclists. While the pair was eliminated on the episode that aired Friday and will not win the grand prize, the teammates both spoke positively of their experiences on the show. 

“It was super fun. It kept you on your toes; it was totally unexpected,” said Perfetto, who called both herself and her partner “adrenaline junkies.” “We knew it was going to be totally a surprise the whole way. … The hardest part I think is packing; you don’t know where you’re going to be or what you’re going to be doing.”

When CBS started planning the show’s 25th season, the network was looking to include more all-female teams. With four all-female teams — including competitive cyclists, scientists, a mother-daughter duo and real estate agents from Miami — this is the most all-female teams the show has ever had, Perfetto said.

The Amazing Race challenges two-person teams to trek around the world for about 25 days while competing in mental and physical challenges, according to the show’s website.

“You have no contact with the outside world, no email, no Internet, no phone,” Perfetto said. “You’re completely off the grid because they treat it very much like a game show. There are a lot of rules, and you can’t cheat.”

Without a phone or GPS, she said, she was worried about her navigation skills going into the show.

“My sense of direction is terrible,” Perfetto said. “I was really worried about just getting completely and horribly lost. That fear followed me throughout, but it didn’t prove to be as difficult as I’d expected.”

Perfetto said that as time went on, she became more capable of the tasks she had to do and learned make use of simple clues, such as the sun or oral directions.

Though Perfetto and Forsythe were friends before the race, they learned they worked well together when challenged. 

“We learned, even though we are very similar, we have complementary skills,” Perfetto said. “She’s very good at putting things together, and I’m really good at languages. Our brains are definitely flipped. I’m a little bit more of a free thinker; she’s much more rational, logical thinker.”

Perfetto considers herself an avid traveler, but she said the race took her places she didn’t think she would have gone on her own, such as the Shetland Islands off of Scotland, which was so beautiful it was “mind blowing,” she said. 

That love of travel partly stems from her time at this university, she said. She lived on the French floor of the university’s Language House and took part in several on-campus performances.

“She was a wonderfully talented student,” theatre professor Scot Reese said. “She was a great [actress] and was a great mentor to younger actors.”

Reese said he’s not surprised that Perfetto appeared on The Amazing Race,because of her personality, work ethic and training from the liberal arts component of the school. Perfetto said she also got into fitness at this university, using the facilities as a stress-reliever and for motivation.

Now that the competition is over and that Perfetto is no longer go-karting on cliffs and flying in a sea plane above the Virgin Islands, she’s working on her own health and fitness YouTube Channel, “KymNonStop,” and teaches cycling classes at SoulCycle in Los Angeles, where Forsythe also teaches.

“Kym is headstrong, a little bossy, and she takes risks,” Forsythe said. “But on the other side, she’s extremely supportive. She’s a great friend; I can count on her for anything. And she’s very fun.”