Originally arriving to study at University College Cork, Vanessa Pulgarin Auquilla, 33, from Ecuador, met a West Cork man by the name of Seamus, who convinced her to give Cork a longer look.
“I also wanted to do my masters in English, so that reduced my options,” she said. “I considered the UK, a couple of masters in English offered in Germany and the Netherlands, and Ireland of course. Additionally, I was working remotely for an organisation based in Brussels when I decided to do my masters and I didn’t want to go to a big city because I did not want any distractions from work, so it had to be a second city.
“After considering the options, the programme that UCC offered was a perfect fit to my interests and the communication with the university and my masters director was impeccable, so that made all the application and visa process very easy.”