The salt of the earth

The annual International Eye Photo Contest is a great opportunity for Princeton undergraduate students to share their experiences abroad with fellow returnees and the greater campus community.

The contest is sponsored by the Office of International Programs in collaboration with Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, the Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.

This year’s entries totaled more than 450 and represented students traveling in 57 countries. Keller Center’s Princeton Startup Immersion Program (PSIP) intern Katherine Wang ‘20 took Best in Show at the March 27 awards ceremony with a photo she snapped during her summer internship in Tel Aviv. We asked her why she chose to submit this photo and how it represented her international experience. Here’s what the computer science major had to say.

“At 3 am one morning, a group of my peers and I took a bus Masada to climb the mountain. This photo was taken at the top, just as the sun was beginning to rise above the horizon, exposing an amazing expanse of salt from the Dead Sea on the desert plain below. This moment was meaningful because it marked the beginning of a summer that would change my tunnel-vision approach towards life. PSIP challenged me to rethink my preconceptions about people, places, opportunities, and about myself. To know a new person or a new place is to know the world a little better, but also to realize there is still so much to learn and that that is not always something you can plan ahead for. I titled this piece “The Salt of the Earth,” which means basic and fundamental goodness in an individual or group, because I learned that although I may not always have complete control of the future paths available to me, I can always make a conscious choice about the background in which I make that journey and to strive to be the best version of myself in the present.”

Congratulations, Katherine. Keep snapping!