Photo Gallery

Globe Trotters

Have camera, will travel: A showcase of images taken by students traveling abroad.

The road less traveled is getting harder to find, as more and more undergrads beat a path around the world as part of their studies. Last year 674 students participated in 57 off-campus academic programs, including foreign study programs (FSPs), language study abroads (LSAs) and Dartmouth exchange options. Students return with new friends, lasting memories and—thanks to the ubiquity of smart phones, GoPros and digital cameras—photos. Lots of them.

Since 2012 the Frank J. Guarini Institute for International Education, which oversees Dartmouth’s off-campus programs, has invited students to showcase their images from abroad and compete for cash prizes. The competition “serves as a nice way for students to reflect on their academic and out-of-classroom experiences,” says executive director John Tansey. “It also affords an opportunity to catch a glimpse of the variety of remarkable experiences available.” For the 2016 competition, 38 students submitted 82 photos in four categories: nature and physical landscape, people and community, academic engagement, and urban and architecture. The photos were displayed last spring at Collis Common Ground, where faculty, students and staff could vote for their favorites. Here’s a small selection.

Namibia (Alisa White ’17, Environmental Studies FSP, Southern Africa)
“I was walking near the back of the group and felt a sudden urge to capture the incredible, fleeting madness of this moment. While the picture is almost tranquil and still, the wind was whipping sand in our faces. I had never done anything like climbing that dune. I like to think that all of us on the FSP still have sand in our shoes from studying and hiking up these beautiful dunes. I hope I’ll carry that sand, that knowledge of a world so different from my own, with me for a long time to come.”
Alisa White ’17
China (Jennifer Zhao ’18, Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures (Chinese) LSA)
“While I was walking around Beijing Normal University, this building caught my eye because the modern style stood out from the drab concrete buildings on campus. What interested me the most was that despite the modernity, the residents nonetheless followed traditional Chinese customs and left their laundry out to dry instead of using a drying machine.”
Jennifer Zhao ’18
Spain (Anna Ghnouly ’16, Geography FSP, Czech Republic)
“While on the FSP I traveled to Spain for the first time. Walking into Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia was truly awe-inspiring. The best part was the bright light beaming through the windows, illuminating the cathedral’s interior columns and stonework. I tried to capture this burst of light in my photo to convey the kind of ethereal beauty I felt gazing up at the vaulted ceilings. My breath was literally taken away. I had never cried from architecture before!”
Anna Ghnouly ’16
Poland (Sonia Robiner ’16, “Economics 70” Immersion Experience)
“Our class had Polish language lessons during our two-week trip to Warsaw. Most of the group took the subway to the classes, but a couple of us decided to walk one foggy morning. To get there we had to walk through a small park, which the fog had transformed into an eerie scene like something straight out of a horror film. The picture sums up how our group found excitement and humor in every small detail of the beautiful country.”
Sonia Robiner ’16
Scotland (Joshua Tseng-Tham ’17, Philosophy FSP)
“In the fall I took a course called ‘Philosophy of Time.’ I learned that despite our best attempts to understand time, we are forever bound by it. This church [Holyrood Abbey] is a testament to the fact that while nothing escapes time, we can nonetheless learn from it.”
Joshua Tseng-Tham ’17
New Zealand (Kristen Chalmers ’17, Anthropology and Linguistics FSP)
“We were amazed by how well the history of this beautiful area near the Taranaki volcano connected to the topic of our FSP: colonialism. The volcano holds great spiritual significance in Māori culture and has recently been renamed Taranaki, after decades of being referred to by its colonial name, Mount Egmont.”
Kristen Chalmers ’17
China (Sigan Chen ’17, Chinese LSA+)
“This photo captures the spirit of modern Beijing while paying homage to its earlier days. The bustling cars stand in marked contrast to earlier decades, when the streets were populated by bicycles and pedestrians and life moved at a slower pace.”
Sigan Chen ’17
Costa Rica (Perri Haser ’17, Biology FSP)
“This strangler fig stretched 100 meters up and was likely hundreds of years old. Symbolic of the fast turnover of organic resources in rainforests, strangler figs start as saplings in the canopy and slowly grow their roots around host trees, crushing and depriving them of light. The awe-inspiring power of these trees causes us to ponder our significance in the global biosphere.”
Perri Haser ’17
New Zealand (Kathleen Li ’17, Anthropology/Linguistics FSP)
“This was taken at a geothermal nature reserve in Rotorua, New Zealand. The steam swirling above the boiling water can be seen in the photo, as well as the beautiful orange deposits caused by chemical reactions in the geothermal pool. It is affectionately named ‘Champagne Pool’ because of the carbon dioxide efflux, and the experience of standing on some of the thinnest parts of the Earth’s crust was unforgettable.”
Kathleen Li ’17
Italy (Faith Rotich ’18, Italian LSA)
“There is nothing I miss more than my night walks along the Tiber River, listening, breathing to the sound of the river.”
Faith Rotich ’18