Alicia Dixon is a 2020 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. She participated in Georgetown’s London semester program in Transnational Legal Studies.
As someone whose field of interest is very international, I loved that the Center for Transnational Legal Studies was all about transnational law. The idea of studying in London also appealed to me.
CTLS is, hands down, one of the best things I did in law school, if not the best thing. I have closer relationships with some of the students and teachers who were with me at CTLS than I do with people who I saw every day in law school for three years. The social aspect of CTLS is incomparable. You simply don’t get the same experience in more traditional study abroad programs.
The academics are also just fascinating. I feel like I learned more in my Migration and Human Rights course at CTLS than in almost any other class I took in law school. It’s really refreshing and eye-opening to remember that the US legal system doesn’t exist in a vacuum and discuss the context of legal issues on a worldwide scale. You learn things about international legal systems that you would never be exposed to otherwise. I got so lucky to be in the last group before the pandemic, so I really got the full experience that we are now having to move back to so slowly.
Do you feel that participating in the study abroad program benefited your law school experience in some way? Or benefited you, yourself in some way? How so?
Absolutely. First of all, CTLS drops you into a situation where you have to make friends with people from all over the world or be alone for four months. That really sharpens your ability to navigate a multi-cultural environment. It also just gives you such a new perspective on courses and legal issues because you get voices and opinions that you would never have considered in your US classroom.
Not to mention, it’s such a great networking experience, especially if you have any interest at all in international law. You become really close with your peers and professors, and you never know when those connections might help you down the road.
For other more stories and what to know before you go, read the Winter 2022 issue of The National Jurist magazine.
