Passage to India: RIT Business Student Wins YaE Treks Contest

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Drew Lierheimer

This summer, Drew Lierheimer will be taking a short cycle rickshaw ride in Old Delhi, riding an elephant in Jaipur, taking a boat ride on the River Ganges and visiting the holy city of Varanasi.

The finance major who attends the E. Philip Saunders College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology has won a trip to India. Lierheimer will be departing from the U.S. on July 31 for a two week, all-expense paid jaunt as the grand prize-winner of the YaE Treks contest.

“YaE Treks wanted a slogan for their new ‘Young and Energetic’ travel company, based in Chicago, and started a contest through Twitter and Facebook,” says Lierheimer, a senior who works as assistant director of the Insight Lab at RIT and is the founder of the Theta Psi chapter of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity on campus.

Lierheimer came up with a winning slogan, “Reveal the explorer in you,” which summarizes the company’s focus—to offer young travelers insights into domestic and foreign cultures as well as providing them with service work for charities around the globe. YaE Treks also supplied Lierheimer with an iPad 2 for his trip so he could blog and tweet about his experiences.

“Drew Lierheimer will be visiting the Golden Triangle of India,” says RIT Saunders College Dean Ashok Rao. “He is in for a truly mind-expanding exercise that will engage all his senses—sound, sight, smell and touch—and introduce him to centuries-old spiritual habitats.”

The Cooperstown native, whose parents moved to Arizona when Lierheimer entered RIT, plans to document the experience with pictures and video to share online with friends and family.

“My trip to India will be an exotic look into a culture that few students like myself have the opportunity to experience,” he says. “I’m excited and anxious at the same time.”