Last week, I was catching up with a colleague who had just returned from vacation. As we were catching up, we got onto the subject of our careers, and she mentioned that while she never intended on working in education, she really loved it now and thought she’d stick around for a while.

She wasn’t the first person in the industry to say this to me. I’ve run into a lot of people who have said they didn’t plan to work in education. Many have even said they didn’t realise there was a career to be had in education outside of being a teacher.

I was no different. In fact, I planned on never working in education. As the son, nephew and brother of current and former teachers (three different people), I wanted to be the black sheep of the family.

Next year will mark 15 years in international career.

If you’ve been a long time reader, you know that I have often reflected on my career. I actually did so last month when comparing how much easier I had starting it compared to today’s graduates. I’ve also reflected on how the challenges of the past decade or so are not that dissimilar to the challenges we face today.

What I haven’t spoken about is the awareness that was around international education at the time I started because there really wasn’t much, if any at all. Aside from speaking engaging with some international students while I was studying, I wasn’t aware that there was a multi-billion dollar services industry occurring around the world. Chances are you weren’t either, before you stepped into the international education sector.

I’d like to think there is more awareness of international education now, albeit, rather negative headlines in the mainstream. But as my colleague, who is still comparatively newer to the sector, shows, that might not be the case. It’s certainly not the case for most international students. Very few will be aware that they are part of a much, much larger machine dedicated to social mobility and education attainment.