Durham College (DC) has announced the winners of its first-ever Experience Video contest. Christine Carson, Ivan Nimtsiv and Saiss Parthipan created the top three videos and won $1,000 in cash!

Launched via the Experience DC campaign, the Experience Video Contest was open to any resident from across Ontario over the age of 15. Entrants were encouraged to submit a 15-second Instagram video about a life experience, and the top three videos with the most votes received the cash prize.

“I look at life in a positive sense, I have the will to win, the desire to succeed and the urge to reach my full potential,” said winner Ivan Nimtsiv, first-year Human Resources – Business student. “This money will help me to pay for school.”

Saiss, a second-year UOIT student, said he saw the contest on Facebook and decided that his video would share life from a student’s perspective.

Mom and Oshawa resident, Christine, found out about the contest online and decided to submit a video featuring her baby Reid. “Everyone loves babies and baby videos,” she said.

With more than 27,000 visits to its web page and over 10,000 votes on video submissions, the contest provided an opportunity for residents across Ontario to share their story with a group of 14 dynamic DC students known as Team Experience and falls perfectly in line with the multi-platform Experience DC campaign.

Team Experience has been sharing their own stories of college life since September 2014. They’ve connected on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram 20,000 times, on YouTube 150,000 times, and through more than 100 insightful blogs, giving followers an authentic, real-time account of what life at DC is like from their own perspective.

“It was great to see everyone’s creativity shine through in their 15-second videos,” said Matisse Hamel-Nelis, a second-year Public Relations student and member of Team Experience. “The word experience can mean different things to different people and this contest captured that essence. Congratulations to the winners and all those who submitted a video for sharing a piece of your day-to-day life with us.”

Anyone wanting to follow the adventures of the Team Experience members can visit www.durhamcollege.ca/x to check them out, and be a part of it.