Information about the SanPietro Travel Prize

Due March 1. (In years in which March 1 falls on a weekend, submit on the last Friday in February)

Submit Materials to: FASA, Room 319, Center for Student Services

Travel anytime June through September – Travel must be completed before the start of the fall term. All recipients must submit a detailed report on their trip and required receipts within 30 days of their return. Applicants are required to either prepare a story for the Tech on their return or participate in the SanPietro Information Meeting.

Travel for fun and personal growth for 2 weeks to 3 months during the summer after your sophomore, junior or senior year! Travel by yourself or with a Caltech friend or significant other. Great "add-on" to a summer research experience, before studying abroad in the fall, or as a full summer of travel. (Travel anytime June through September.)

Craig SanPietro, a Caltech alumnus (class of 1969), has generously donated $250,000 to endow a summer travel prize. This prize will be open to rising juniors (current sophomores), rising seniors (current juniors) and continuing and graduating seniors.

The prize will allow students to propose travel from two weeks to a full summer to anywhere in the world including travel in the U.S. Mr. SanPietro has agreed to allow proposals for pair travel – that is, two students can propose to travel together. Both members of the pair must currently be Caltech students that meet the requirements for the prize. The travel experience should be one that expands the applicant's horizons and challenges them and the applicant should clearly articulate how the experience will challenge them and expand their horizons in their proposal.

Application requirements:

NO GPA REQUIREMENT, NO CITIZENSHIP REQUIREMENT-but students must be in good academic and disciplinary standing and enrolled during the term in which they apply.

All students must be enrolled in Caltech as current sophomores, juniors or seniors.

If you are a senior who is not taking classes second term, but enrolled first term and graduating in June, you are eligible to apply, but you must come to campus for an interview or be available for a phone interview if not within a two-hour drive to Caltech.

Please note that after completion of the travel, the prize recipient(s) will report on their experience by submitting an article to the student newspaper or making a public presentation to other students by December 31 of the same year.

Application procedure:

Students will need to submit the following to Fellowships & Study Abroad (FASA) as a hard copy – do not staple, paperclip and put your name on each page and number each page at the bottom:

1. Travel proposal, itinerary and detailed/itemized budget by country-specify cost for lodging, food, local/area travel, entrance fees, etc. and note the number of days in each locale.

   Be certain to provide a total amount of funds requested for the budget.

   (Note that lodging in hostels or bed & breakfasts is usually quoted per person and not per room.)

2. Transcript – Unofficial is fine
3. Two letters of reference from faculty, employers, administrators, etc.
4. Peer reference (Optional)

The two letters of reference should focus on the student's capacity for growth through travel, personal qualities that would enhance a student's ability to have a successful travel experience, as well as any other qualities the writer deems relevant to the application. The letters should come form faculty at Caltech or another university or from professionals who have overseen the student in an employment, leadership, or research capacity.

Each year about $15,000 total will be available as prize money. Each student or pair of students' budget should detail their own projected costs. We hope to select several prizewinners with varying lengths of travel.

The proposal should contain information on the motivation of the student or pair in seeking the prize, how the travel experience will provide a growth opportunity and an itinerary of where the student or pair plans to travel and why.

Note there is no limit on the number of countries visited nor are there any language skills required. There is no academic component to the proposal. This is travel for personal growth and fun! The proposal cannot be to fund travel to obtain a medical procedure, to do volunteer work, or to do research related to a senior thesis or other ongoing research.

Travel is allowed to countries with a travel warning, but if you wish to travel to such countries, you must submit a copy of the Official State Department warning (http://www.state.gov) and discuss how you will deal with the issues noted in the warning or specify how you will not be traveling in the parts of the country under warning, while traveling in the country.

The application deadline is March 1 and winners will be selected by early April. Applications are to be submitted to Fellowships Advising & Study Abroad, 319, CSS on Holliston.

Here is an overview of Mr. SanPietro's own travel and comments on why he has endowed this exciting prize:

Foreign Travel: Mexico '71, Guatemala '71, El Salvador '71, Honduras '71, Nicaragua '71, Costa Rica '71, Panama '71, Peru '72, Bolivia '72, Antigua '74, Guadeloupe '74, Dominica '74, Canada '75, Japan '76, Egypt '77, Kenya '78, Tanzania '78, Holland '81, Indonesia '81, Sri Lanka '81, India '81, Nepal '81, England '83, Australia '84, New Zealand '84, Tahiti '84, Venezuela '86, Brazil '86, Argentina '86, Paraguay '86 Portugal '91, Spain '91, Jamaica '94, Italy' 95, Israel '00, Jordan '00, Ireland '05

Award decisions should be based more upon the potential for broadening the students' cultural experiences than relevance to academic coursework, and some preference should be given to cultures more different from America's. Since leaving Caltech in 1969 I have traveled through almost 40 countries, mostly in the third world. This travel has greatly enriched my life and I want to make similar experiences available to Caltech students.

Exotic travel is giving oneself the opportunity to be in cultural and physical situations so different from what one is accustomed to that one is mentally challenged and feels more alive than usual.

I've driven to Panama, been held up in Mexico City, had a bus driver handcuffed and arrested in the Yucatan, driven through rivers in Honduras, been married in Peru, fixed dead-in-the-water steamship engines on the Amazon, been arrested myself at gunpoint in Brazil, gambled in Paraguay, blown out 2 tires in a dry river bed in Kenya and been charged by an elephant later the same day, body surfed in Indonesia, bent fenders in Dominica and Italy, assisted lost taxi drivers in Japan, walked across fields of compressed human feces in Nepal, locked myself out of my car in Sri Lanka, been stranded in the Delhi airport, capsized a raft in New Zealand white water, and temporarily lost my daughter in Spain."