Bis research paper number 128 The wider benefits of international higher education in the uk

Case study: I60 
Alumnus I60 related a quite complicated but uplifting personal experience of UK HE. 
After a law degree in Colombia, she pursued postgraduate law course options in France 
and the UK, having also done an exchange to the US. The UK appreciated her strong 
local degree attainment and she thought a UK Masters would be prestigious in Colombia; 
her grandfather had studied at Oxford. Accepting a place at Liverpool, she won a 
Hodgson Scholarship there. 
She viewed her time at Liverpool as 
“the time of my life…absolute delight”
and took 
every opportunity to participate, from the RAG committee to voluntary work and even 
Spanish lessons as well as part-time work, and notes the opportunities afforded her 
through the Scholarship trustees. She loved Liverpool itself and made friends from all 
over the world, finding that experience personally profound but quite shocking – as she 
had to “
make peace with my devils
” (i.e. overcome her own prejudices). Overall she 
reports that it made her more open, more flexible and confident to blaze any trail.
Having wanted originally to work in international litigation she changed direction and 
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The Wider Benefits of International Higher Education in the UK 
Case study: I60 
worked for the World Trade Organisation and then as an intern for the UN in South 
Africa, where she moved with her husband and is now also studying for a PhD. The 
Masters directly enabled much of this progression. 
She is still in touch with her Liverpool lecturers and actively involved in the alumni 
network both in the UK and South Africa, as well as donating to the university regularly. 
She circulated a personal recommendation to all student finalists at law school in 
Colombia that they consider studying in Liverpool and/or the UK, and 5 students have 
since come to the UK. She also notes that the UK is becoming the destination of choice 
for HE in Colombia, partly due to the language and London’s dominance as a 
corporate/financial centre.