Photographs by three engineering seniors are winners in Vanderbilt’s Global Education Office 2019 photo contest.
Emily Larson, a senior mechanical engineering major and engineering management minor, studied abroad in Madrid. She also is a licensing intern at the Vanderbilt Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization.
Thomas Mallick, a computer science and political science senior, spent a semester in Copenhagen and chose to live in a homestay in Denmark. He has been a software development intern at Sabre Corporation.
John Valin, a computer science senior, spent a semester in Madrid. He also has served as an intern at Capital One.
Eight winning photos were selected from a total of 210 submissions by students who studied abroad during Maymester, summer and fall of 2018 and the spring 2019 semester.
All the regions where GEO, home of the undergraduate study abroad program, has programs were represented in the submissions, including Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the South Pacific and the Middle East.
A committee of GEO staff selected the winners based on photo quality, aesthetics, content and diversity. The 2019 photo categories were “A Day in My Life Abroad,” “Beyond a Postcard,” “Diversity Around the World,” “Food for Thought” and “The Great Outdoors.”
The 2019 winning photos by engineering students are:
“A statue of Jesus carrying the cross is marched through the city gates to the cathedral during a Semana Santa (Holy Week) procession in the city of Burgos. The men move slowly, the heavy float swaying to the somber rhythm of the band. We were only in Burgos for an hour on our way back from the north of Spain and we happened to coincide with this procession. As we watched we could feel the rich depth of tradition, community, and religious devotion, even if we didn’t understand the details,” Larson said.
“The blue chair in the corner of my Danish homestay is something of a celebrity within the family. The chair has been passed down for generations, from one Dane to another. My homestay mom, Solvej, even painted the wall behind it blue to match. As the light streams in on a sunny Danish morning, Sazzi, our Bernese Mountain Dog, watches over the rest of the house, eager for bacon and belly rubs,” Mallick said.
“As a part of my trip to Morocco, we traveled by camel with a local Berber tribe into the Sahara Desert, where we camped for the night before making our way back out. This is the way these tribes have traveled and lived for hundreds of years and it was humbling to experience it for ourselves with these people,” Valin said.
Check out the GEO Flickr album for all 2019 photo contest entries as well as winning photos from previous years.
The GEO photo contest for academic year 2019-20 is now open, and rolling submissions are being accepted from students who study abroad in May, summer and fall 2019 and spring 2020. Students may submit their photos here.
In addition, GEO is piloting a Humans of Study Abroad photo blog. Entries can be submitted here.
Contact: Brenda Ellis, (615) 343-6314
Brenda.Ellis@Vanderbilt.edu