This week, we spent five minutes with Devarshi Desai, the co-founder of media start-up Internash and student recruitment company Studynash.
We spoke about Devarshi’s transition from an international student content creator to working in the industry and what he is seeing from universities on TikTok.
How did you find yourself working in international education?
By sheer accident. I came to Australia as an international student to study a business master’s at Monash University. Soon after coming to Australia, I started creating content about the life of an international student on YouTube and other social media platforms.
We ended up creating one of the largest online communities of international students and turned our following into a media startup. Today I run a media startup (Internash) and an edtech startup (Studynash) helping students study abroad.
Proudest career moment?
The first time when an international student walked up to me and said, ‘Thank you, Dev. I am in Australia, living my dream because of you and the content you create. It helped my parents feel a lot better too because they got to know what my life would be like once I reach Australia to study.’
Since that day it has been my mission to help as many students as possible to fulfil their dream of studying abroad.
What do you think is the biggest challenge to your profession?
I strongly believe this is the best time to build a career in international education because students worldwide understand the value of the experience they can get from studying abroad and the number of students studying abroad is increasing year by year.
However, the profession’s biggest challenge is the ever-changing policies and laws regarding the entry of international students and migrants. Whether it is the UK or Australia, we have seen policies affecting international students change quite a bit.
A long-term stable view towards immigration might help prospective international students and international education overall.
If you could learn any language instantly, which one would it be and why?
Body language. When you start working with people from different cultural backgrounds you learn so much about their culture and their body language.
What’s the most interesting trend you’ve observed in our industry recently?
My background is in marketing and social media. For the longest time, we all believed that making TikTok videos and Instagram reels is something limited to Gen Z or the younger generation.
“Watching universities create TikTok videos has been an interesting trend for me”
However, if we look at the stats, over 40% of the users on TikTok are between the age of 30 to 50, and now, no matter how big an organisation is, they are compelled to be on such platforms and create content.
Watching universities create TikTok videos has been an interesting trend for me.
If you had a magic wand, what would you change about the sector?
In an ideal world, I would want international education to be affordable and accessible for every student across the world that wishes to study abroad.
