Dennis Bayazitov | Assistant News Editor

Featured image: Three York students were selected as winners of #MyExperienceYU photo contest. | Courtesy of Gurpreet Singh, Mathurayine Kandasamy, and Chelsea Gomes

This week, York revealed Gurpreet Singh, Mathurayine Kandasamy, and Chelsea Gomes as the first-, second-, and third-place winners of this year’s #MyExperienceYU photo contest.

York received over 700 photo applications on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #MyExperienceYU for a chance to win $3,000. Photos showcased a range of scenes, from the educational travel experience York offers, “from designing and building your own metal sculptures, to interning as a project coordinator at Shanti Uganda, or discovering tech giants like Google, Twitter, and Silicon Valley,” says York Media Chief Spokesperson and Director Barbara Joy.

A Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering Master’s candidate with Lassonde, Singh won $3,000 for his photo of himself and his colleague, Zahra Vaziri. In the picture, they are working on a Sun Tracker, a piece of equipment that the two Lassonde engineers were testing in preparation for a polar sunrise arctic campaign Singh would later participate in.

Fourth-year Schulich iBBA student Kandasamy won $1,500 for her photo of herself by the Cathedral Caves, with a sunset backdrop, in the South Island of New Zealand during her semester abroad.

Fifth-year Glendon iBA student Gomes won $500 for her photo of herself as a Red Cross volunteer organizing donations for distributing food for earthquake victims, which took place during a week-long event, “Salvando el Planeta” (Save the Planet) that she attended in Mexico on exchange.

“The contest was designed to bring experiential education at York to life, by showing a multitude of opportunities through our students’ perspectives,” says Joy. “Whether it’s in the classroom, the workplace, or the community—locally or globally.”

Singh adds the photo that won him the top prize had been uploaded to his Instagram about a year earlier, taken by his colleague Bobby Ngo.

“It was so spontaneous. I didn’t even know he was taking a picture!” The photo was taken before Singh would take the same equipment for his arctic campaign, in “Eureka, Nunavut, 80 degrees north—the farthest North you can go in Canada.”

Singh believes with Experiential Education, students get the chance to apply everything they learn in lecture. “When you’re in the field, it’s like you’re a hundred times better of a person: your brain explodes with new ideas, which you can try out in your new surroundings.”

He notes travel makes for an especially enjoyable part of the experience.

“Just going to the Arctic, I was obviously going to go from point A to point B—but just going from point A to B fills you with enormous passion and curiosity,” he says. “You know? Like, ‘how’s the land going to be? What are we going to do when we land? Will there be any wolves?’”

Kandasamy believes the reason why she placed in the top three was because her “photo captures the essence of travel: marvel.”

She shares that for her, the best part about #MyExperienceYU was “the ability to put both current and prospective students in the shoes of those actively learning through experiential education.

“Experiential learning pushes you past your comfort zone, for a type of learning that goes beyond just academics, helping with personal growth.”

Kandasamy shares that the experience has helped her better understand which professional path she wants to take. Before her exchange, she was “going down a more conventional path—one I thought was the only way.

“Traveling and meeting lots of individuals helped me realize that there’s much more to life than the regular nine-to-five everyone is in a rush to attain.”

Kandasamy told herself she would try to enrol in the Las Nubes York course if she won as one of the finalists, to “acquire more valuable experiences through education.”

Gomes hopes her photo will inspire other students to partake in experiential learning, and help others in need, abroad. “During my internship in Uganda, I was able to work closely with children every day,” she says.

“Although it was rewarding at the time, I did not learn its deeper value in my education until I returned to the classroom at York, where I was better able to understand concepts and visualize situations with children.”

Gomes says experiential learning has also changed her comprehension of international studies. “Before going to Uganda and Mexico, I had heard several negative perceptions of those countries,” she shares.

“I am thankful for having the opportunity to live in them, as now when I refer to these countries in my academic work, I have a perspective about them that I would have not as easily encountered through online research.”

“There are currently no contests planned in the near future for Experiential Education,” Joy reports, “but we received such a fantastic response, and close to 12,000 votes on the photos.

“That is definitely something we’ll look into in the upcoming year.”