Janine is an international student from France who is studying at the Hotelschool The Hague, location Amsterdam. She contacted Studiemeesters two months ago, seeking tutoring for the economics course “Creating Business Value” (CBV).
Why did you seek private tutoring for Creating Business Value?
“I was about to drop out of school. I had a private interview about that with my tutor at school, who told me about Studiemeesters. At Studiemeesters I discovered that there were a lot of things that I had missed. The first time I studied for Creating Business Value I went quickly over the book, because classes required a lot of self-study. But you can never be sure when relying on self-study alone. I had a lack of practice in exercises. There were things I didn’t understand. I had questions about the meaning of financial statements and the use of ratios and cost analysis.”
How did Studiemeesters tutoring help you?
“I would never have actually read everything properly if it hadn’t been for Studiemeesters. During the CBV classes I never really understood the meaning of the learning units. I was rushing through it because I also had another course, E&S (Exploring & Structuring International Hospitality Businesses). I thought I would have time later on, but actually I didn’t. There were so many things in the book of which I thought ‘What am I going to use this information for?’ I concluded every time that it was not important, when it actually was. As my tutor, Kinge forced me to go into the details and showed me what the important parts are. After that, each time I was studying my book I kept wondering at how interesting it all is.”
Over the course of this tutoring we discovered that you actually have a talent for what you are doing now. Do you want to do more with finance?
Smiling widely: “Yes, I really do. I hadn’t noticed before that the subject interested me. I want to do more with finance, but now I see what I want to do. I still have a lot to learn, like MFD (Making Financial Decisions) and RM (Revenue Management). But I still love it!”
“Studiemeesters tutors are experienced professionals, who can explain content very well, but who also help students create better study skills and solve motivational and concentration problems.”
Is there anything that you learned during your tutoring for Creating Business Value that you can take away to other exams?
“Yes, an important lesson that I learned is to really read questions. I have the knowledge and skills now, but I tend to not read questions well. For me, as a dyslectic, reading is horrible. I can read but I don’t actually comprehend. I have always misread questions. I got used to not reading – I made that a routine. So despite the fact that I do have the skills and knowledge to answer a question, I always happened to answer a different question than the one on the exam. But being aware of that problem is half of the job. Now I am working on creating a new routine: Going back to the question after answering and checking if I really answered that question. Studiemeesters tutors are experienced professionals, who can explain content very well, but who also help students develop better study skills and solve motivational and concentration problems.”
Studiemeesters has a study room, in which students work on their academic tasks in a comfortable and friendly environment, supervised by a professional study coach. Studying in our studyroom is called ‘studiedag’.
You have had tutoring and you went to studiedag. Did you like studiedag?
“Yes, I really like it. Unfortunately I have a lot of things to do during the day, so I cannot come to studiedag often. But at home I just can’t concentrate. We have a study place where I live, but it is not as effective as studiedag. At the studiedag the atmosphere makes me automatically concentrate on my studies. Everybody is studying. Time flies during studiedag, while at home time goes very slow.”
Overall, do you feel that Studiemeesters made a difference?
“Yes”, says Janine decisively. With a big smile: “I discovered so much.”
The day after this interview, Janine scored a 75 on Creating Business Value.
About Studiemeesters
Studiemeesters offers high quality tutoring (in Dutch and English) for almost all Hotelschool The Hague courses and theses (CBV, RIB, MFD, RM, DMO, LYCar). Studiemeesters is located in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and Leiden, and is open from Monday to Sunday, all year round. For more information, you can email office@studiemeesters.nl or call 020 7371945.