27 - I came all this way for this?! An international student’s experience of UK higher education

Summary

A few years ago, I had the satisfaction of watching one of the most powerful, inspiring, and touching speeches I have ever seen. Most probably, the reader will also have seen it, or at least heard about it, as it made the headlines around the world. I am talking about the speech delivered by the American actress Viola Davis after receiving the Emmy award for best leading actress in 2015. She began her speech quoting Harriet Tubman, who stated the following in the 1800s:

In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful White women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I cannot seem to get there no- how. I cannot seem to get over that line.

Viola Davis then complemented this by saying: ‘Let me tell you something. The only thing that separates women of colour from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are not there.’

Bringing this powerful speech into the context of the present essay is not only important but also highly pertinent, as its key theme intertwines with the scope of my personal account: the opportunity to display one's value, skills, knowledge, competence and potential. In the specific case of an academic career, without egalitarian opportunities it is impossible to cross the line preventing Black scholars from ever standing before a university classroom and/ or conducting research. Thus, in this essay, I present my perceptions and experience of trying to cross this line to reach the ‘green field’ of academia, which seems increasingly out of reach for Black scholars.

I am a Black man who arrived in the UK in 2014 from a developing country with the clear and well- defined goal of becoming an international- level social science researcher and lecturer. Within the timeframe of a year and a half prior to arriving in the country, I had applied to eight competitive programmes and was accepted for six. Achieving such a high success rate brought me great joy and satisfaction. It is well- known that, like the USA, the UK has an enduring and strong reputation for providing world- class education, especially at PhD level, along with a solid tradition of developing influential and high- impact research across a variety of disciplines.