Travels in the Long Vacation

Travels in the Long Vacation

  • Still from Ellen's vlog about her time in Athens
    Still from Ellen's vlog about her time in Athens

Undergraduates Lydia Bunt, Akil Hashmi and Ellen Harris undertook trips across 11 countries over the summer, meeting local alumni and visiting sites of interest, as 2017 recipients of the Student Travel Award. The award exists to connect current students with Cambridge's international network of Alumni Groups.

Lydia

Lydia

Lydia has just started her second year studying Modern and Medieval Languages at Pembroke College. Her trip focused on cultural highlights including art galleries and museums, particularly in Germany and Austria, as well as her local group in the UK.

Alumni Groups visited

She described one of her days in Vienna on her blog: "In the morning, I headed to the Museumsquartier to visit the Leopold Museum and the Kunsthalle Wien. The former has a great collection featuring most of Austrian Expressionist painter Egon Schiele’s massive oeuvre, and the latter provides a platform for modern art. It’s nice that a large concentration of the city’s ever-expanding artistic history is enclosed within these walls.

"Afterwards, I went to search for some less-lauded but still valuable art on the streets. In the roads around Mariahilfe Straße, one of Vienna’s biggest shopping streets, there are many more spontaneous sections of creative expression.

"In the evening, I was lucky enough to be taken for dinner at a traditional Austrian Heurige by Michael, President of the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Austria, and Sabine, one of the Vice Presidents. I didn’t realise, but wine’s quite a big thing in Vienna, and, unusually, there are lots of vines on the outskirts of but still within the city. We tried the typical Viennese Gemischter Satz, apparently made from several different grapes all grown together. It was great to hear about the diverse activities that the society puts on each year, and to be exposed to a bit of Austrian German. I look forward to meeting some more members of the Society tomorrow."

Akil

Akil

Akil is an undergraduate at Robinson College studying Engineering. His itinerary took in visits to Berlin, Prague, Zurich, Geneva, Paris and London.

Alumni Groups visited

“My first destination is Berlin where I hope to impress alumni with my pre-school command of the German language (read: 3 phrases). […] First day in a new city. What's the priority? Food. So it was lucky the German Cambridge Society had invited me for lunch […]. I met a cross section of alumni including two recent graduates who were using the society to socialise in an unfamiliar city. One graduate (Trinity '17) showed me around the startup they are interning at. Berlin is known as a young city which helps fuel the startup scene. Crucially this office offered (more) food so a successful day all in all.”

“As the weekend rolled in, Berlin turned into Prague. One blue sky traded for another. First stop was a welcome to the city from a PhD architect (Jesus College) who originally grew up in Prague. After a brief explanation of the city's architecture (spoiler: it's pretty good) he showed me the ropes to his company. The company follows on from his PhD and uses software to calculate the effects that gardens have on building's temperatures.”

Ellen

Ellen

Ellen is studying Psychology and Behavioural Science as an undergraduate at Magdalene College. Her trip took her to countries in the region of the Balkan Peninsula, Cyprus, Israel and the Group local to her hometown in the UK.

Alumni Groups visited

Ellen vlogged whilst on her trip. Here you can see her video about visiting Sofia in Bulgaria, where she toured historical and archaeological sites:

Sofia!

Connor

The next adventure

Connor MacDonald, who is studying Human, Social and Political Science at Emmanuel, will be visiting Scotland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland in December 2017. Bookmark the Student Travel Award page to keep up with his travels later this year!

Student Travel Award webpage

About the Student Travel Award

The Student Travel Award provides students with funding to travel throughout Europe during the summer or Christmas vacations, visiting Cambridge Alumni Groups and promoting their activities to students.

Find out more about the award and this year’s winners on the Student Travel Award webpage.

Thanks

Discussing their experiences, the students commended the individual leadership from Alumni Groups’ committee members, without whom Cambridge’s global network could not exist. We are very grateful to these volunteers and their Groups’ members for all the work they do to make their Groups and the wider network such a vibrant and diverse opportunity for alumni.

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