When Jacky Mendoza Monzon, a junior majoring in neuroscience, traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico as part of her Maymester program, she did not imagine having the best experience of her life. From bonding with peers to learning about Oaxacan culture to visiting historical sites, Mendoza Monzon believes her study abroad experience helped her grow as a student and a person.

“Being in Oaxaca, I was able to live in the moment,” Mendoza Monzon said. “I did everything in Oaxaca. I went out exploring. I took risks. I did things that challenged me.”

Today Mendoza Monzon, alongside other study abroad students, will have the opportunity to revisit and celebrate their memories from their remarkable trips at the Center for Languages and Cultures and Office of Overseas Studies’ first-ever photography contest exhibition and award ceremony. The contest invited students, who participated in one of 40 study abroad programs during the 2022-2023 school year, to submit memorable photos from their trips.

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Leading with the mission to develop a community of language learners at USC, the CLC wanted to organize a photo contest that highlighted the diverse experiences of these students and provided them with the space to reflect upon their trips through a creative lens.

“What you perceive as a person is very specific. It is influenced by your own experiences and your own interests, so to see someone else’s perspective on a particular topic, it is very interesting,” said María Mercedes Fages Agudo, the chair of CLC’s community outreach committee and master lecturer in Spanish.

Through the help of sponsors, such as the Dornsife Language and Culture Advising Office, Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures, and Academic Innovation and Research Engagement Center, the CLC and Office of Overseas Studies brought the contest to life, receiving over 60 photos took in countries all over the world.

To highlight the diverse experiences of studying abroad, the contest provided participants with three categories to submit their photos: Landscapes, Everyday Scenes and People. In addition to the CLC community outreach committee as part of the judging panel, each category had two additional judges, spanning from study abroad advisors to artists to architects, who choose a first, second and third place awardee within every category.

The CLC community outreach committee encouraged judges to base their votes on not only the aesthetic quality of the photos but also the power of the emotions the photo evoked. The students’ creativity and interpretation of the categories pleasantly surprised the judges.

“It’s really amazing seeing the creative eye that a lot of students have,” said Andrea Storey, a judge and study abroad advisor at the Office of Overseas Studies. “Through photography, you can see different aspects of a culture that maybe you wouldn’t see yourself. It’s really beautiful, seeing the interpretation of the categories as well as how students took a particular prompt to create [a photo] that’s both visually appealing and representative of the culture.”

During her time in Oaxaca, Mendoza Monzon and her class created a shared digital photo album to keep track of all the memories they made on the trip. With encouragement from her study abroad professor, Mendoza Monzon decided to submit several photos from her studies. One of the photos she submitted under the Landscape category was of the ancient pyramids they climbed during their visit to Mexico City.

“When we went to the pyramids in Mexico City, it was really awesome being able to see how all of these structures were made in the past [and] by our ancestors,”  Mendoza Monzon said. “It’s amazing how [these pyramids] are still up.”

Meanwhile, in Argentina, Anthony Guan, a junior majoring in human development and aging, spent the summer in Buenos Aires, studying immigration, politics and society while also exploring the city, which led to some of his favorite memories. One of which he captured on his camera and submitted to the photo contest under the People category.

“There was a ranch with a bunch of dogs, and [my professor] picked up a small white dog that had mud all over and I took a picture of him,” Guan said. “It was very much representative of how this [experience] was so different from the normal classroom environment.” 

Alongside the award ceremony and photo contest exhibition, the CLC will simultaneously host a Foreign Languages Majors and Minors Social Mixer to provide students with the space to learn more about the opportunities USC offers in studying a new language and expanding these studies abroad.

“We combined both activities together so that there is a chance for students that are thinking of majoring and minoring in different languages to have an opportunity to talk to the students that have participated in programs abroad,” Fages Agudo said.

The awardees will be announced Wednesday at 5 p.m. during the ceremony held at the CLC on the third floor of Taper Hall. Winners will receive a prize and their photos will be put on display in the office until the next annual contest.

“This contest really highlights the beauty and the diversity of different cultures, and I hope it’s a way to show potential future study abroad students to learn everything that there is to offer, things that they might not have ever expected,” Storey said.