Student Travel Writing Contest with Scholarships

For our annual Student Travel Writing Contest with cash scholarships, please think about the following questions and requirements:

• What you were looking for when you were planning to study, intern, volunteer, travel, work, or live abroad as a student?
  
  
• Follow the general guidelines below as a basis for your article or mini-guide, since the more questions you address, the more likely your essay will help to inform and inspire other prospective students in their ventures abroad.
  
  
• Feel free to take your own angle, having reviewed some of the past winner's articles, but still keep the future student going abroad squarely in mind while providing links to useful resources.
  
  
• Do not submit highly personal narratives in this contest, since the essays are meant to be practical guides for others, though selected illustrative anecdotes can be helpful while adding color to your essay.
• Where did you go to school before your work/study/internship/travel/living/volunteering abroad?
  
  
• What motivated you to go abroad?
  
  
• What subjects or activities were your primary interests abroad?
  
  
• How did you select your program or activity abroad? Did you use search engines, word of mouth, databases, unedited reviews, social media, forums, or other communication modes? Emphasize essential practical information such as how you researched and selected a program or arranged your independent study, volunteer service, travel, job, or internship.
  
  
• If you selected and write about one program or independent activity in which you participated, please provide a list of similar programs or alternative opportunities you researched for the reader from which they might choose.
  
  
• Where did you go abroad, why, and when?
  
  
• In which program(s) did you end up participating? Was it an organized program, direct attendance at an academic institution abroad, or independent study?
  
  
• Once you were abroad, what did you wish you had known before you left?
  
  
• Were there any unexpected events, challenges, or realizations while you were abroad?
  
  
• Did you encounter what you felt was racism, sexism, or any other form of aggression during your time abroad? How did you react and what did you learn or do you wish to share about the experience?
  
  
• What was the best part of your experience abroad?
  
  
• Describe with some specificity and even with anecdotes what you did in your studies, internship, work, volunteering, travel, living to provide a clear sense of your experience. What you did will most certainly be of interest to others.
  
  
• Do you consider your venture abroad as achieving or exceeding your goals?
  
  
• Would you go abroad again? Would you recommend that others do the same?
  
  
• Did you consider yourself a good ambassador while you were abroad? Did you feel you gave as much as you received from the people and culture hosting you?
  
  
• What role did social media and online communications play in your experience abroad? In these times, when we are spending more and more of our waking life online, how did you balance such activity with cultural immersion and direct connection with locals and your host family?
  
  
• Since you have returned (if you have), how have you been able to fit what you did and learned abroad into your life—academic, career, and otherwise?
  
  
• Do you think that your experience changed your life spiritually, academically, and will it alter your future life, including career choices?
  
  
• Did you go abroad with the expectation that the intercultural skills you would develop might help you in your future career — skills employers now seek?
  
  
• Did you intend to write about your experience during and after your experience abroad, and via which media?
  
  
• Has your experience abroad, post graduation, led to the work abroad you desire as a result, or more likely to related international work from your home country? Many jobs or careers these days involve interaction with international entities, did your experience abroad help you with your current employment responsibilities?
  
  
• Think of yourself as a study abroad advisor and your reader as a student like yourself before you decided to study/intern/live/work abroad. Offer your best practical advice.
  
  
• Be specific: Vague and flowery evocations of the place(s) you visited and what a wonderful time you had there are not always helpful to someone preparing for his or her trip. Good writing avoids clichés.
  
  
• Write like a journalist seeking to tell a story attempting as much objectivity as possible to reach a wide and educated audience seeking minimal bias.
  
  
• If you write about your experience as a student in a specific program, remember that the appropriateness of the program depends on the individual.
  
  
• While remaining practical, please do not hesitate to offer your most inspiring experiences and advice. Describe your personal passions relating to traveling, living, and learning in the country(ies) in which you visited.
  
  
• If you feel that anecdotes or epiphanies offer a view into the core of your experience abroad, please provide them as well as any dialog with locals that may have changed your perspective.
  
  
• Include a box-out(s) with useful relevant information or related programs that you considered or discovered to help others in their research.
  
  
• Note: Please provide high quality and high-resolution photographs to make your submission stand out and help convey the context of your experience in conjunction with your words.
  
  
• Note: Optionally provide Youtube video(s), links to blog posts or multimedia of any kind that will help further evoke what you experienced abroad and will inspire others to follow in your footsteps.