What was Cranfield's impact
I did my PhD long distance and part-time. A piece of advice is to have a good relationship with the supervisor. Doing a PhD long distance is challenging. I was working full time, so I was warned that something has to be sacrificed, but, thankfully I have a very good relationship with my supervisor, and I think one that's one of the most important factors when doing a PhD degree.
People from Cranfield have been very regular with their communication. One of the best features was having an online library. There was a good access to journal articles that you cannot just normally get into anywhere. They offer everything like the journal articles, the PhD masters theses of any topic, especially pieces that are related to your subject.
Everybody knows that doing a PhD is very challenging; it can be varied, it can be quite lonely, but the best part for me was doing the fieldwork. I did mine on the contribution of Defence to National Development in the case of the Philippines. So I got to travel to the Philippines, my home country, and meet people in the defence sector, policymakers, people from civil society. And because my study was about security policy, and how is it being implemented on the ground, I was able to interview the whole spectrum. When I was presenting my proposal to the Cranfield panel, they were very excited, because they don't get much study about the Philippines. The interest was there, the engagement was there, so it was good.