{"id":1174,"date":"2017-03-07T16:49:42","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T16:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/?p=1174"},"modified":"2017-03-07T16:49:42","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T16:49:42","slug":"lucy-binfield-the-shangri-la-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/2017\/03\/07\/lucy-binfield-the-shangri-la-institute\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucy Binfield (The Shangri-La Institute)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Name:<\/strong> Lucy Binfield<\/p>\n

Subject:<\/strong> International Innovation (Environmental Science)<\/a><\/p>\n

Year Graduated:<\/strong> 2016<\/p>\n

College:<\/strong> Graduate<\/a><\/p>\n

Where are you now and what are you doing?<\/strong>
\nI live between Beijing and Shangri-La, Yunnan, a small city in rural China. I work in communication and strategy for a Chinese NGO, The Shangri-La Institute<\/a>, that uses education and community empowerment as a tool for sustainable development and environmental change across China.<\/p>\n

What would you like to do next?<\/strong>
\nI plan to stay in China working for another year or two, to see some of the projects through that I have started working on, and also to finish my Chinese language exams. After that I have a lot of ideas about what to do, from travelling to continuing my studies or exploring work opportunities around Asia.<\/p>\n

Why did you choose to study at Lancaster?<\/strong>
\nI found out about the Msc in International Innovation, which offered a \u00a316,000 bursary over eighteen months and offered a six month placement in China after completing an Msc in one of five departments including Environmental Science! It was a really interesting mix of postgraduate interdisciplinary study at a high level, cultural immersion and business experience, and of course the fact that it was fully funded made it more attractive… In addition, I grew up in the Lake District and loved living close to the mountains and lakes of my childhood and closer to my family after a few years living further away.<\/p>\n

What was your favourite part of your degree and why?<\/strong>
\nI met some great friends for life on the course and of course the opportunity to travel and experience life in China for six months fully funded was amazing.<\/p>\n

How do you think your time at Lancaster prepared you for what you\u2019re currently doing?<\/strong>
\nFree evening classes in introductory Mandarin were provided as part of the course which ignited a spark of interest in the language without which I would not be able to do my current job. Being able to go out to China for six months in a supportive environment with a big group of friends and Lancaster University staff members on hand also made it much easier to make the leap to living and working here by myself!<\/p>\n

What did you enjoy most about your time at Lancaster?<\/strong>
\nThe Sports Centre<\/a> is really well equipped and good value, including an awesome climbing wall. There are also loads of great places to cycle and run around the campus and town.<\/p>\n

What advice would you give to current students?<\/strong>
\nLancaster is a great place to live and the faculty are in general very supportive. There is space and time to get involved with whatever you feel like, just go for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After completing her MSc International Innovation (Environmental Science), Lucy works in communication and strategy for a Chinese NGO called The Shangri-La Institute. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":654,"featured_media":1175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[14,33,10,92,46],"class_list":["post-1174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-profiles","tag-2016-graduate","tag-environmental-science","tag-graduate-college","tag-international-innovation","tag-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/files\/2017\/03\/Lucy.B.000.jpg?fit=250%2C250","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8rD16-iW","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1176,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174\/revisions\/1176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/beyondlec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}