Illinois Central College Welcomes Students From Around the World
Dylan Meyer
Sept. 15, 2021
This semester I’ll dive into the life of intentional students attending ICC. It’s essential to meet and learn about our foreign exchange students to better understand the world around us.
Illinois Central College sophomore, Yerko Berrocal, came from a big city in Ecuador and recalled his past from his native country. “Ecuador is a beautiful country. It has everything, nice beaches, the food is crazy good, and you’ve got mountains.” Ecuador is a country in South America that lies right on the equator. Before Yerko came to the United States, he studied law and worked at a law firm at fifteen years old.
“I love the law. That was something I knew I was going to do in the future.”
One significant difference between the United States and Ecuador is education. All you need to enter law school in Ecuador is a high school diploma, whereas here, you need a bachelor’s degree to enter law school.
During his time in Ecuador, he found his passion for criminal law. After listening in on cases, he was very upset about the lack of a fair justice system. “It was who pays the judge more money…there was a lot of corruption, and it was very bad to see.” During one case he oversaw, the plaintiff was a kingpin in the local drug scene. Yerko realized the kingpin bribed the judge with money, “That was sad for me because that’s when I realized the justice system was biased.”
After a financial crisis hit Ecuador in 2019, he visited his father, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois. Yerko came to Peoria in August of 2019 and stayed for five months until he returned to Ecuador in December. Yerko returned to the U.S. on a student visa. He said, “I realized that I wanted to stay here in Peoria and enter law school here.” He started at Illinois Central College in 2020 but couldn’t meet people due to the pandemic. He currently works in the enrollment services here at ICC and as a member of the International Club. He plans on getting his Associate of Arts in pre-law and hopes to get a full scholarship when enrolling in a four-year university.
When asked what’s one thing he expected in the United States that isn’t true, Yerko thought people here in the U.S. and Peoria wouldn’t be open to foreign visitors. He feared that people would “not be very happy if someone would speak their language or if they came from somewhere else, but all of them have been nice, and they have diversity here.” His experience has been the complete opposite, and he’s looking forward to a new beginning here as well as spending time with his father.
Feature Photo Credit: Stephanie McClaskey