Choosing to do the DBA in Higher Education Management was both a career move and because of my interest in learning more about the ecosystem I’m evolving in.

Doing a PhD has always been in a corner of my mind. During my master’s, I was a Vice-President for student affairs, so I knew exactly how the PhD worked and how difficult PhD students’ lives can be.

I had the opportunity to join a group in France called UDICE. It's a group of research-intensive universities in France, equivalent to the Russell Group in the UK. They made me a job offer and I was like, okay, I need to take this one. I come from a rural area and a fairly low-income background so I couldn’t pass on the opportunity of a good job in Paris.

So initially, I didn’t go into research, but it's always been on my mind. I was seven years into my career when I started an application for a PhD at my university in France. But I realised I didn’t want to embark on this very solitary journey and also be considered a student within my own institution.

So I looked at Doctoral programmes in the US and the UK, and the Bath DBA came up pretty high on the list. I've been in higher education and research all my career, and I’m very passionate about this complex ecosystem, so it made sense to start the DBA in Higher Education Management.

I've been a peer mentor for the past couple of months for the new DBA students. I tell them the same thing that a former student told me when I started: the most important part of the DBA is not the final result, but the journey.

I think the residentials have been that journey. When you're with your cohort on a residential, that's the most important and thrilling part of the course.

I was expecting to meet people just like me, working in major universities around the world. But I found out that people were working in private care, education in smaller institutions, research-intensive or more teaching-focused roles. Some were working for the rankings team and others for the media and so on.

That combination of many different experiences and backgrounds is very interesting. You can discuss topics on an equal footing with everyone. We have people from Europe, South Africa, Japan and the Middle East. It's helped me a great deal to learn how other countries' systems work. When I discuss a strategic topic, I'm now able to say I know about this from the point of view of another country.

It’s a network you’d not be able to develop until much further into your career if you didn't do the DBA. You’d need to go to a lot of conferences and international events. If you do the DBA, then you have all of it packed into those four residentials, creating stronger and more durable connections.

As soon as the fourth residential ended, I was ready to start my thesis. I need to put a lot of time into it and I think the main issue of the research phase is that it's a little more lonely than the residentials. This is where the programme most resembles a PhD and I will need to do a lot by myself.

My thesis will address the influence of trust on the identity work of university presidents in France. The thing I'm most looking forward to is interviewing university presidents and learning more about their perspective.

I am very honoured that my thesis is supervised by Professor Andrew Brown. He is one of the most influential researchers on identity work and his experience and expertise will be key in producing a strong thesis.

PhD students are sometimes expected to work on a project designed by their supervisor. The design of my research proposal was discussed collectively with my supervisor, the DBA faculty staff and my DBA cohort. I came up with the initial idea and the final residential helped it come to life.

In France, the DBA has historically been regarded as a lesser version of the PhD. But we now have a growing market for DBA programmes. I don't believe they're the same as the Bath DBA. They're not as demanding and you don't produce a whole thesis. The Bath DBA will be hard to promote in France, but it's a challenge I'm willing to try.

I'm keeping all my doors open. I'd like to publish some articles. That's another interesting thing about the Bath DBA, your assignments can be published in peer-reviewed journals.

Maybe I will stick to professional services and grow my career within that frame. Maybe I will do a bit of teaching and research. I think the boundaries between academics and professional services are slowly diminishing. The fact that we have more DBA graduates becoming full-time researchers or even Vice-Presidents in some universities shows there are opportunities to explore new types of career. I think the UK is more advanced than France on that. It's one point I’m trying to make in my thesis.

My advice if you’re thinking of applying for the DBA is that the journey matters so much. What you do with the assignments will then fit into what you do with the thesis and that will fit into what you do with your career. It all affects the direction you're going in.

Bath is a research-intensive university. You can come here to progress your professional career and do the research that you've always wanted to do. The DBA is not only the qualification but also the proof that you can think and act like a researcher. This is very important for higher education managers working daily with academics.

During my first assignment, I didn’t know where I wanted to go, what topic I wanted to pick and how I wanted to look at it. And then, in the end, everything makes sense and you have this whole panoramic view. I can’t wait to look back at it and say 'that was the journey that I've been through and I'm proud of it'.