Go Abroad Fund – Homecoming Competition

The Go Abroad Fund gives students from all degree programmes and levels of study the chance to take part in international experiences over the summer.

Students have the opportunity to travel anywhere in the world to take part in a range of opportunities such as volunteering, internships, research, summer schools and conferences.

Last year saw 344 successful applicants travel to 77 different countries to take part in their international experience.

After the summer the Go Abroad team host the annual Homecoming reception, to celebrate the Go Abroad fund recipients and to learn more about their international experiences.

Highlights from the Homecoming event

The annual Go Abroad Homing reception celebrates the Go Abroad Fund recipients and to find out about the amazing things that they got up to during their summer abroad.

As part of the event there is a competition where fund recipients can submit works to three categories, best written word, best photo and best video.

The winners of last year’s competition were:

Best Written Word - Heather Milligan

Best Written Word - Heather Milligan - Energy Politics

Heather Milligan travelled around the east coast of America researching the social and political effects of climate change. Through interviewing a range of people over the course of the 4,500-mile trip, she gained insight into marginalised communities in the US.

Best Photo - Gergana Daskalova

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Gergana Daskalova travelled to the Canadian Artic to conduct research on the effect that climate change has had on vegetation. Gergana was able to combine different data collecting techniques to improve understanding on how the Artic is responding to climate change. She captured this amazing picture during her time there.

Best Video - Rhiannon Tambini-McGee

Rhiannon Tambibi-McGee went on a month-long trip to Indonesia to help gather data with Operation Wallacea to gather data for two research projects. The first was for local reef monitoring, with the data being used for appeals to local government officials to ban harmful fishing methods, and the second was for the Global FinPrint Project, the largest global shark and ray survey to date. During her time there, Rhiannon created this stunning video.

Randall Reinhard, Go Abroad Project Assistant explains some of the benefits of taking part in international experiences.