Can education change not only what we know, but what we believe is possible? When we talk about education, we often talk about grades. We talk about exams, university rankings, degrees, scholarships, applications and acceptance letters. We measure academic success through numbers: a GPA, an SAT score, a place at a prestigious university.
But education is supposed to be more than a collection of numbers. At its best, education changes the way a person understands the world — and, sometimes, their place within it.
The career of international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney offers an interesting example of this idea.
Amal Clooney born Amal Alamuddin in Beirut in 1978, left Lebanon with her family as a young child during the Lebanese Civil War and grew up in the United Kingdom. She later studied jurisprudence at the University of Oxford and completed an LLM at New York University School of Law. Her career would eventually take her through international courts, the United Nations, human-rights cases and legal work across multiple countries.
Her story is not simply about attending prestigious universities. It is about what can happen when education crosses borders.
More Than a Change of Country
For an international student, moving from one education system to another can feel like entering an entirely different world. Different countries have different expectations about classroom participation, authority, examinations, writing, debate and even what it means to be a "good student." In one system, memorization may be rewarded. In another, students may be expected to challenge their professors.
Some classrooms prioritize individual achievement. Others emphasize collaboration. Some educational systems are built around standardized examinations. Others give students much more freedom to explore subjects independently. Crossing between these environments can therefore change more than a student's academic record. It can change their habits of thinking.
UNESCO has described international student mobility as a driver of knowledge exchange, intercultural dialogue and skills development. At the same time, it has emphasized that access to international education remains unequal, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
That distinction matters. International education can be transformative. But it is not automatically accessible. And that is one of the contradictions at the heart of global education today.
From Beirut to Britain
Clooney's educational story begins before Oxford or New York. It begins in Beirut.
She was born in Lebanon in 1978 and left the country with her family during the Lebanese Civil War. Her family eventually settled near London. Years later, she would return to Lebanon professionally as an investigator for the United Nations, working in a country that was simultaneously part of her history and the subject of international legal work.
That trajectory is worth pausing over. For someone who leaves their country as a child, "home" can become complicated. It can be a place you remember. A place your parents talk about. Place that exists in photographs, stories and fragments of childhood.
And sometimes, education becomes part of learning how to understand that complicated relationship. Moving countries can force a person to navigate multiple cultures, languages, histories and social expectations. Instead of seeing the world from only one perspective, they may gradually learn that the same event can look completely different depending on where you stand.
That is one of the most valuable things international education can offer. Not necessarily knowledge of another country.
Perspective.
Oxford: Learning to Think About Law
Clooney studied jurisprudence at the University of Oxford.
Her own description of her education later highlighted an interesting distinction: she described her Oxford studies as relatively theoretical, including the study of Roman law, while she found her later education at NYU much more focused on the practical application of law.
That contrast illustrates something important about education. There is a tendency to ask:
"What can I do with this degree?"
But sometimes a better question is:
"How does this degree teach me to think?"
Theoretical education can seem disconnected from the "real world." Why study ancient legal systems? Why read theories written centuries ago? Why spend hours discussing principles that seem far removed from current events? Because education is not always designed to give us immediate answers. Sometimes it gives us frameworks. It teaches us how to identify a problem, question an assumption, construct an argument and understand where an idea came from.
Those skills can travel. A person may study Roman law in one country and later work on modern international human-rights cases somewhere else. The specific information may change. The intellectual tools remain.
New York: From Theory to Practice
After Oxford, Clooney moved to the United States to study for an LLM at New York University School of Law. According to NYU Law, this was where she became particularly drawn to international law. She described the program as a complement to her Oxford education because of its emphasis on real-life legal application.
That difference between theory and practice became significant. At NYU, she was selected for an externship in the chambers of Sonia Sotomayor, who was then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She also took a constitutional litigation course taught by federal judges despite not having completed the usual prerequisite course.
Clooney later recalled that her professors "took a chance" on her. That phrase may be one of the most interesting parts of her educational story. Because education is not only about what students bring into a classroom. It is also about what teachers are willing to see in them. A professor who gives a student an opportunity can sometimes change the trajectory of that student's career.
A conversation can turn an abstract interest into a profession. An internship can transform an imagined career into a realistic one. Education creates these encounters. And sometimes, one encounter is enough to change a direction.
When Different Educational Systems Meet
Clooney's education is particularly interesting because it was not built inside a single national system. Britain gave her one academic environment. The United States gave her another. Her professional life then moved into an international legal environment that was different from both. This creates a broader question:
What happens when students learn in more than one educational culture?
They may become more adaptable. They may encounter different academic expectations. They may discover that there is more than one legitimate way to approach a problem. And they may become more comfortable with disagreement. That does not mean every international student automatically becomes globally minded. Living abroad does not magically make someone open-minded. But education can create opportunities to encounter people whose experiences challenge our assumptions.
UNESCO has emphasized that higher-education institutions can provide spaces for intercultural dialogue, mutual understanding and participation among migrants and host communities. In other words, an international classroom can become a small-scale version of the world itself. People arrive with different histories. They bring different assumptions. They disagree, explain and listen. And ideally, they leave with a more complicated understanding of the world than the one they entered with.
Education and the Ability to Cross Borders
There is another side to international education that is less romantic. Crossing borders for education is a privilege. Tuition can be expensive. Visas can be complicated. Moving countries requires money, documentation and support. And even when a student receives a scholarship, there may still be costs associated with travel, housing, applications and living expenses.
UNESCO has repeatedly highlighted inequalities in access to international student mobility. This creates an uncomfortable question:
If international education can transform lives, who gets access to it?
The answer is not equally distributed. A student from a wealthy family may be able to apply to universities across several continents without worrying about application fees, flights or financial emergencies. Another student may have the academic ability to succeed internationally but never apply because studying abroad appears financially impossible. Talent is distributed widely. Opportunity is not. And that is one of the biggest challenges facing international education.
The Problem With the "Study Abroad Changes Your Life" Narrative
There is a popular story about studying abroad.
You leave home and arrive somewhere new. You meet fascinating people. You become independent. You return home as a completely different person. Sometimes that happens. But it is not the entire story. For many students, moving abroad can also mean loneliness, language barriers, cultural misunderstandings, homesickness and uncertainty. A student may be academically successful while still feeling like an outsider.
They may understand the textbook but not the social rules. May speak the language but not understand the jokes. Or they may know how to write an essay but have no idea how to approach a professor. International education therefore requires more than simply accepting students from different countries.
Universities need to create environments in which students can actually participate and belong.
UNESCO's recent work on intercultural integration in higher education emphasizes that integration should not be treated as a one-way expectation placed entirely on migrants. Institutions and host communities also have responsibilities to create environments where students can participate and develop a sense of belonging.
That is a crucial distinction. International students should not have to erase themselves to fit into an institution. The goal should be exchange, not assimilation.
What Happens When Education Meets Identity?
Education can also complicate identity. A student who grows up in one country and studies in another may begin asking questions they never considered before.
Where am I from?
What does "home" mean?
Which traditions belong to me?
Which beliefs did I choose, and which ones did I simply inherit?
What parts of my identity change when I cross a border?
These questions are not always comfortable. But education is not necessarily supposed to make us comfortable. Sometimes its purpose is to make us question what we previously considered obvious. A classroom can become a place where students discover that the world is larger than their own experience. And that can be transformative.
From Student to International Lawyer
Eventually, Clooney's education became part of a career that was itself international.
After NYU, she worked in New York and later pursued international legal work in The Hague. She worked with international institutions and tribunals and eventually became a barrister focusing on international human-rights, public international and international criminal law.
Her professional work has included representing journalists and victims of mass atrocities and working on cases involving international human rights and criminal law. She also co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which works on issues including trial monitoring, accountability for mass atrocities and women's rights.
The important point is not that Oxford or NYU "created" her career. Universities do not manufacture people. Students bring their interests, experiences, personalities and ambitions with them. But education can give those things structure.
A student interested in justice can become a lawyer.
A student interested in politics can become a researcher.
A student fascinated by languages can become a translator or diplomat.
A student who cares about inequality can become an advocate.
Education can transform an interest into a set of tools.
And tools can become action.
The Global Classroom
Perhaps the most important lesson from stories like Clooney's is that education no longer has to fit neatly inside national borders. Universities themselves are becoming increasingly international. Students study abroad. Researchers collaborate across continents. Classes connect people from different countries. Degrees are increasingly recognized across borders. And digital education has made international academic exchange possible even for students who cannot physically move.
UNESCO reports that millions of students pursue higher education outside their home countries and has emphasized the importance of recognizing foreign qualifications so that people can study, work and continue their education across borders.
The future classroom may therefore be less defined by geography.
A student could live in Morroco, study at a university in the United States, collaborate with classmates in South Korea, conduct research with a professor in Germany and participate in an internship with an organization in Kenya. The technology already makes parts of this possible.
The bigger question is whether educational systems will make it accessible.
But Should Everyone Study Abroad?
No.
And that is important. International education is valuable, but studying abroad is not automatically better than studying at home. A strong local university can provide an excellent education.
A student can develop global perspectives without leaving their country. Internationalization should not mean that students have to leave their communities to receive a quality education. In fact, the ideal future may be one in which students can access international perspectives without being forced to become international migrants. Virtual exchange programs, international research partnerships, multilingual classrooms, visiting professors and cross-border collaborations can all contribute to this.
The point is not to make everyone leave.
It is to make the world less intellectually divided.
What Education Can Give Us
Amal Clooney's story is ultimately not a story about Oxford. It is not a story about NYU. And it is not really even a story about becoming a famous lawyer. It is a story about what education can make possible when knowledge crosses borders.
A child who leaves one country can grow up and return to it as a professional. A student can study one legal tradition and then work within another. A classroom can introduce someone to a field that eventually becomes their life's work. Professor can give someone an opportunity they did not expect. And a university can become a place where a person learns not only what they want to do, but why they want to do it.
That is the deeper promise of education. Not simply employment. Not simply prestige. Not simply a degree framed on a wall.
Possibility.
Education Should Make the World Bigger
There is a strange irony in education. We spend years learning facts about the world, but the most valuable thing education can give us may be the realization that our own understanding of the world is incomplete.
The best education does not tell students:
"Here is everything you need to know."
It tells them:
"There is more to discover."
That is what crossing educational borders can make especially visible. A student enters a new classroom and realizes that another student has a completely different understanding of history.
A professor introduces a theory that challenges something they previously believed. Conversation reveals that a political issue looks completely different from another country. New language changes the way an idea can be expressed. And different educational system forces a student to reconsider how they learn.
None of these experiences guarantees success. But they can make a person's intellectual world larger. And perhaps that is the real purpose of international education. Not to produce people who belong everywhere.
But to produce people who can understand that no single perspective contains the whole world.
The Question We Should Be Asking
Amal Clooney's educational journey began with movement: from Beirut to Britain, from Oxford to New York, and eventually into an international professional world. But her story raises a question much bigger than one person's biography.
What could education make possible for someone who currently has no access to it?
What happens when a talented student from a rural town receives a scholarship?
What happens when a refugee enters a university classroom?
What happens when a teenager who has never left their country meets people from ten different countries?
What happens when a student who believes they are "bad at school" finds a teacher who recognizes their potential?
We cannot know every answer. But we do know that educational opportunity can influence people's ability to continue studying, enter professions and participate in societies across borders. UNESCO describes higher education as an increasingly important space for inclusion, mobility, intercultural dialogue and global cooperation.
So perhaps the goal of education should not simply be to prepare students for the job market. Perhaps it should prepare them for a world that is already interconnected. A world where the biggest problems — conflict, climate change, migration, inequality, technology and human rights — do not stop at national borders. And if our problems are global, perhaps our education should be capable of being global too.
Amal Clooney's career is one example of what that can look like. But the bigger story is not Amal.
It is every student who crosses a border — physically, intellectually or virtually — and discovers that the world is larger than they thought. Because education does not always change where we come from.
Sometimes, it changes what we believe is possible.
Sources
New York University School of Law, Barrister Without Borders: Amal Clooney LLM ’01.
UNESCO, More than Welcome: Intercultural integration of migrants in and through higher education.
UNESCO IESALC, New insights on countries’ objectives to promote international student mobility.
UNESCO, What you need to know about qualifications recognition.
UNESCO, Higher education: How do we unleash the talent of the next generation?