Can you tell us more about yourself and your work?
I am a mother of two, I work when the children are at school and juggle in between children and housework when they are back and my work has nothing to do with accounting or finance.
Many users are working just like you, how do you balance between studying, job, and private life?
I do not really know how many OpenTuition users are working just like me but I gather when I was leading F6 there were quite a lot of people working and studying at the same time but most of them were taking tuition as well.
Any particular method – as a working student – works for you?
Working and studying at the same time need a lot of discipline and strong will. I find that getting up early in the morning before the family members get up is the best time for me. So.. I get up at 5am till 8am to study and that would be my studying time for the day.
Are you attending classes? or just distance learner (please put here somewhere that you live in spain.. so i can ask….
I live in a little village in South of Spain. There is nothing that you can call a tuition here. The place itself is quite small with a few shops on the street. So I have no other option but to self-study. I have 3 different publisher´s books for me to compare and I have nice OT-ians friends helping me with my questions when I do not understand the topic. I must say…. for someone who is not as motivated as me, would really find studying very hard without OpenTuition existing. I can just turn up online to the chat room and meet other students, there are forums for asking questions and helpful students are just everywhere in OpenTuition. That really makes studying fun and it does motivates me a lot just to know that I am not on my own and alone.
Spain? Is ACCA popular in Spain?
I do not think that ACCA is popular in Spain. The language barrier and the Tax System are just so different but then again.. I have not worked in the accountancy field here in Spain so I cannot say much about it.
Why did you decide to study ACCA?
Well, well… ACCA is a fabulous qualification that is recognised world wide. With my current situation, I would like to be able to work with the flexibility to be with my children. So the aim is.. to pass ACCA then get the certificate equalised to the Spanish standard, learn Spanish Tax System and be the accountant for the expat here locally. That is the idea. We shall see how it goes as it will take me a long time yet to pass the ACCA as I can only cope to sit for 1 paper at a time due to my work and children and housework but at least I will get there one day.
How did you first time find out about this site?
I got on Facebook to ACCA site. Feeling quite alone, then reading the post on the Facebook from one of the member recommending OpenTuition. I thought.. It´s free!!!! I will try and find out. So I did. It was one of the best thing that has ever happened in my life. I met amazing people and make friends with them and learn from them and of course I do share things back as well to the fellow OT-ians.
What resources are the most valuable to you on opentuition and/or helped you most on OpenTuition?
I must say that the Course Note and video lectures are awesome. I can only say for F6 for now as I find them just invaluable. I am yet to explore the F7 lectures and course note but I was told that F7´s are also the best!!! As a remotely located student like me, I really have no other choice to read my books and do exercises so I find that the forum is great, the chat room is great, and the seniors are greats. I love them all.
Last autumn you have been a group leader for Paper F6! And it was one of the most successful study groups! What have you learnt from that?
Wow!! I did not know that it was one of the most successful study groups. It is nice to know.
Being a group leader was one of my way of motivating myself to stick to my schedule so that I can finish the topic 1 month before the exam and then go to Revision Period.
It was very hard as I had to finish the chapters as per my schedule and having to juggle with day to day life. But it really helped me a lot to keep on going as I did not want to look stupid in front of the participants.
I had quite a number of people thanking me for my notes that I posted on the forum and a few members e-mailing me with a thank you e-mail that they pass the exams thank to the study group.
So all and all it was very beneficial for me and other fellow students as well.
With this I would like to give a special thank you to my one and only hero “Kingnasha”. It would not be possible without him.
What would you recommend to other students who would like to be a group leader or just participate?
To be a group leader, you have a lot of things on your shoulder. Not only you need to plan the lessons but also think of ways to make the study sessions interesting and getting people to participate and have the best advantage for the sessions as well.
Then there are administrative work behind the group leading like chat histories etc. It is really hard work but think of the advantage behind it. You will have to work hard to master the topic very well so at the end of the day it will prepare you very well for your exam.
It is also nice to have study buddies. Your members are all your study buddies. If you do not understand the topic then you can actually discuss it there in the study sessions.
I think the hardest part of being a chat leader is that you get many members who come to the sessions not prepared. I really do not understand why. There seems to be some students who do not really care and expect a lot from the chat leader to teach them like a teacher at school.
It is really nice to have even just 1 member to join the study session but that 1 member comes prepared so we do a brief summary of the chapter in 15 minutes and the rest of the hours are for practice questions and discussion.
What do you think could be improved OpenTuition even more?
I think it would really help to be able to share or view an office file like Excel spreadsheet. It is very helpful especially when we have to deal with calculation questions.
What other study materials do you use? Anything you can recommend?
Study materials are funny business. You would see so many posts on the Forum about what book is the best for such and such papers.
Again… my options… I buy both BPP and Kaplan text books and both revision kits and then sorted. No more confusions. That is for me anyway because as I mentioned before, I have not much choice as I live so remote from other students and no way of tuitions.
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