Interview with Norbert

Norbert is doing Paper P2 this June and is a P2 study group leader on OpenTuiton

Can you tell us more about yourself and your work?

I am a young Cameroonian in Africa actually I’m 20 years old who just completed his part two in Acca and aspire to be an auditor. I am young and ambitious since I will not only want to do auditing as profession other fields to like investment too interest me I just got a place which I can not say I’m employed but under an internship but however I’m looking for employment while doing the internship since I have stopped going to a tuition center.

You have started working, how do you balance between studying, job and private life?

I can not say much here because I have been in the field for still quite a short period of time about three months but I can say now that so far so good only for the fact that it is a little bit difficult to be as conscious as if you where in a tuition center I mean the awareness to study has decreased on my side somehow.

Any particular method – as a working student – works for you?

I just make sure that when I study I do it very well this time around because I know I do not have that adequate time to myself as before so I do less materials but effectively

Are you attending classes? or just distance learner

Actually I do not attend classes nor really do distance learning as such all I do is attach myself to OpenTuition to feel myself in a classroom or in that environment that keeps creating that awareness.

You have been a member of OpenTuition for a very long time now, how did you first time find out about this site?

Sincerely I had been seeing this site in the acca magazine but never had much of interest to it until a friend took me to the cyber and started working on the website before I fell in love with it till today…

Is OpenTuition big in your country?

Sincerely not at all.

I can count the number of students that are active members in my country they will not reach up to 2 that’s it only me that I see from Cameroon in Africa. I may suggest that for the fact that internet facility is not free but paid for and however not cheap pushes away students in using this website even when some of them know about it especially attending group studies and all the like.So most student here are more concerned in receiving form the website with the limited time they have paid for and thus contributing less

What resources are the most valuable to you on opentuition and/or helped you most on OpenTuition?

I think given that most group studies are ineffective while audio and video lectures must be listened online which may be strenuous at times seating by the PC all day long I think the free course notes to me are the most valuable since they are printable.and are summaries.for example I used only OpenTuition notes for Paper F6 and had 66 marks since however I took four courses and I knew reading summarised and precise notes will help me save time and have time for the other courses.
And thank God I made it all.Thus I made a wise choice.

What do you think could be improved OpenTuition even more?

Given the increasing number of members progressively what I think could improve OpenTuition even more are a degree of strictness and commitment especially to study groups sessions which could be well improved for example missing already about three group sessions calls for the need of explanation if you are subscribed to the group. Since large numbers and irregularity will always make that ineffective I think that is a very valuable resource for OpenTuition which is the least utilized sharing knowledge or feeling yourself in classroom.

What other study materials do you use? Anything you can recommend?

I use just OpenTuition notes and kaplan.

You have decided to run P2 chat sessions on the chatroom, not many students know about this. Why would you recommend they attend them, how can they benefit?

Firstly I think that many people do not attend group study sessions because they perceive it to be ineffective. Leaving aside the problem of time differences because if someone knows that there is something he can do in order to pass acca they will do if its getting up and attending a group study session.

Secondly we do not have approved tuition centers here they are just mushroom centers whereby most of them do not even recommend the site. I think we need such facilities as approved centers to create that awareness which I think will only come with time.

However many students hardly read the magazines especially when there is an article that does not concern them so I think that is a useful page to make those adverts especially for people newly starting ACCA.

Thank you for your time good luck in June 2010 exams!