The office of Study Abroad will be hosting an award ceremony for its photo contest from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Nov. 12 at the Tarble Arts Center.

The award ceremony will commemorate the photographs that were selected during the study abroad photo competition during the week of Oct. 28. The winning photos will be mounted and displayed for the public to see.

The photo contest is a first for the Office of Study Abroad, Marissa Sutera, a graduate assistant in the Office of Study Abroad, said.

It was Sutera who came up with the idea for the competition.

“I was just thinking about it, you know. We had students who would submit to us and we would see the photos they took abroad. They were captivating images,” she said. “I thought it would be great to get those photos out to the public and EIU community, show them the international experience EIU students were having.”

Students that have studied abroad or students who are studying abroad were the only individuals eligible to submit photographs.

The contest was divided into five categories: landscapes, food, people, architecture and monuments, and funny. Each student was able to submit two photos per category.

A total number of 20 students were submitted into the contest. Through the Study Abroad Facebook page people had the ability to like the photographs. The number of likes a photograph received allowed the photographs to be displayed at Tarble during the award ceremony.

President Bill Perry, Jay Grabiec, the online specialist and Bill Weber, the vice president for business affairs, will judge the photographs and choose the top three overall winners.

First place winner of the competition will receive digital camera.

Mattie Korneta, a senior history major, whose photograph is one of the top three in the category of “funny” said she learned a lot about herself while abroad.

“I really hope the ceremony makes people want to study abroad. I came back and that’s all I can talk about. I want people to get that experience because it was important to me,” Korneta said. “The fun stuff does require some work sometimes like research and stuff but I think the picture is definitely about the fun and the things you can see.”

Ryan Freer, a senior political science major, said the contest is a good opportunity for others to experience their experiences.

“It provides a snapshot for people,” he said. “If someone submitted a picture from the UK, you think of London but, if someone sees pictures of Harlaxton it broadens the horizon for the person going there but (also) the person seeing the picture. There’s more to the country than the main city.”

After the ceremony the photographs will be on display at Booth Library until the end of the semester.

“Students will be able to see the photos of fellow classmates who have gone abroad and realize one, that it’s possible for them to go abroad, and two, to see how awesome these photos are. A lot of them are breathtaking, and it makes you realize how much else there is in the world,” Sutera said.