Kevin Korgba is Head of Team (Business), London at QA Higher Education.

The taught phase was one of the reasons why the DBA programme was attractive to me. I'd been out of the classroom for a while, so it was useful to sit in a class with 22 other people from different backgrounds and countries, working in different areas of higher education. I liked the practicality that the DBA offers and that's why I jumped onto it.

Even before the course started, the process of getting onto the programme - getting in touch with the admin team, asking questions – was really important. The DBA team was very responsive.

I had an interview. I always say to my students that an interview is a two-way process. You're also interviewing whoever is interviewing you.

I felt that this would be a good environment to learn in. Then when I visited Bath for the first time, the physical environment also added to what I felt during the application stage. Everything just seemed to click.

The course has taken me through various stages of higher education management, from the global to the national to the organisational. The assignments at the end of each residential gave me a lot of writing practice even before starting the final project.

I don't know if any doctoral student ever feels fully prepared to jump into the final phase of their doctorate. I have a combination of excitement and a bit of trepidation. I know I’m going into the final big phase after two years of having all these people around me who I can exchange ideas with.

As a cohort I think we learn as much from our colleagues as we do from the professors. That has been a great part of the experience.

The last residential was quite an emotional one because of that. We knew we probably wouldn't all be together again for that length of time. But there's also the excitement of knowing we've achieved two years of writing papers, submitting assignments and learning through that process.

At the end of this, we'll look back and say: 'I've actually achieved this, I've gone through it all and come out on the other side.'

There's also plenty of ongoing support from the Doctoral College and all the resources they offer, so I know I can take advantage of those too.

I'm always looking for career progression in everything I do, but there's also a personal element to my progress. I've learnt to manage new situations and deal with different types of people. I've learnt to be analytical in my thought process and to not have all the answers, but to know where to look for them.

All these skills will play into my aspirations for the future. I'm going to be with my current organisation for at least two years after I finish my DBA, and I'm always aiming to progress there.

I'm naturally an educator, so I look at education from a holistic perspective. I've always planned to run my own programme. It might not be within an academic organisation, but the grounding that the DBA is giving me will be invaluable in setting it up.

I want to create an organisation that supports international students in the UK. I used to run a student recruitment firm for international students and I was an international student myself. All my DBA assignments have focused on international students, as that's an area I'm passionate about and want to specialise in. The DBA will definitely help me to achieve that.

My final thesis is going to be looking at the experience of international students when they come to the UK. As part of my planning process, I've completed a course to become a mental health first aider. I will incorporate this knowledge to think about what the mental health situation looks like for international students. They're away from home, they're dealing with all sorts of things that they don't know about.

What the DBA offers is a community more than anything. That's one of the big differences between the DBA at Bath and a regular PhD. A PhD can be a very lonely journey. It's not just the students themselves, but the wider DBA management team is invaluable because you always have their support. If you ask questions, you get responses quickly.

There's support from an academic perspective too, and you get the opportunity to expand your network. It might lead to other opportunities.

It's an amazing experience. You gain not just the qualification at the end, but a lot more throughout the process. I would highly recommend the Bath DBA to anyone who's thinking about getting a doctoral level degree in higher education.