DeKALB | Answering 10 questions in 10 minutes earned one NIU student $25,000.

Katie Waltman, a senior art history major, was the final contestant on the college edition of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” The show was recorded Oct. 26 and aired Friday.

After taxes, Waltman plans to use half the money to pay off some of her student loans. She said she’ll use the other half as a down payment on a house.

Since her parents are not helping her pay for college, she said it makes them feel a little less guilty now that she has won the money.

While watching the other contestants sit in the hot seat, Waltman said she started to get nervous. She saw college editions of game shows before and thought the questions would be easier than the normal editions. Despite that, she said a lot of the questions were hard. The difficulty of the questions was pretty random, she said.

“It’s just kind of luck, and I was lucky,” Waltman said.

Waltman said her original $25,000-question was, “What European country is bordered by just two other countries?” She said she was pretty sure she knew the answer, but decided to trade the question in for another one. She said the second question was what Roman god’s name is in one of Mozart’s symphonies. She guessed incorrectly and walked away with $25,000.

“After reaching the $25,000 mark, you can’t lose any money, so my final answer was pretty much a free guess,” Waltman said.

Waltman works at the Medieval Times in Schaumburg and said she doesn’t plan on quitting any time soon. She also plans to finish her education at NIU.

“It was the most stressful thing ever,” Waltman said. “Ten times more stressful than finals. Finals are a breeze compared to that.”

“I think the best part of the experience was meeting the other college kids and [host] Meredith Vieira,” Waltman said. “I’m not sure about the producers because they probably don’t want to just hand out money, but she really wants you to win and you can tell.”