YASMIN AFINA, STUDENT IN LL.M. INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS (GENEVA ACADEMY OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS)

My name is Yasmin, I am Indonesian, and I completed the double degree in July 2017 following two years in Essex, as well as two years in Toulouse.

Before starting the double-degree, I obtained my baccalaureate ES in the British international section at the Lycée International de Ferney-Voltaire. Despite this, I only started to learn English in 4th grade. In addition, French is not my mother tongue. This did not prevent me from applying for, and succeeding in, the double degree!

I found my years in the double degree very rewarding, both in terms of knowledge acquired and in terms of my professional experiences. The English and French legal systems are very different, and the way they work are just as different! The university system in England takes a more "autonomous" approach - students have fewer hours of lecture halls, and professors expect us to do our own research and reading on our own; while the university system in France provides more supervision for its students. These two approaches are very different and each have their positive and negative aspects. I find that having experienced and "tested" both systems has helped me immensely in not only identifying which method suits me best, but it has also allowed me to develop my coping skills. Being familiar with these two different methods, I now find it very easy to adapt to different working methods quickly and efficiently, whether in the context of my studies or my work.

On the personal experience side, I particularly appreciated the support that the University of Essex devoted to the personal development of their students. I didn't feel that studying itself was the only important aspect of student life (although it was very important, I'm not saying the opposite!). The University tries as much as possible to give students opportunities to flourish according to their respective professional, academic and personal projects. For example, the University has more than a hundred student associations and sports clubs. For my part, having always wanted to orient my professional and academic projects towards public international law, I was a member and chairman of the Model United Nations club, for which the University funded a project at the height of £ 2,000, which is really not insignificant for a student project. The University is also one of the official members of the "United Nations Academic Impact" initiative. Since 2014, the latter has been organizing an essay competition called "Many Languages, One World". I had the unique opportunity to participate and win the first edition of this competition in 2014, thus giving me the opportunity to present my work to the United Nations in New York in June 2014!

I am currently a student in Geneva, at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (2017-2018), a joint center between the University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute. I hope to be able to obtain by October 2018 an LL.M. in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.
At the same time, I also work as a part-time project assistant at UNIDIR (United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research). I am working precisely on a project in the field of cybersecurity. Before being recruited in October 2017, I did an internship at the same Institute during the summer, where I carried out research in nuclear disarmament and lethal autonomous weapons systems.

Following my Masters, I plan to do a doctorate in the field of disarmament and international law - precisely on the use of autonomous characteristics in the context of armed conflicts, such as in weapon systems for example. Nevertheless, I am still in full realization of this project, because its realization depends a lot on the financial aspect - I have to find and get a scholarship for it!

Otherwise, in the long term, I want to work in the field of "policy making" and disarmament, an area that I fell in love with after my internship with the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. . For this, I am currently awaiting my results of the written test of the entrance examination to become an international civil servant within the United Nations (Young Professionals Program - Program Jeunes Administrateurs de UN).