Coming from Dahu (China), Zhen Barrera, a 3rd year bachelor student at Vatel Bordeaux, explains how the school helps the students and how the students organize themselves in their homework.
How do you feel overall about distance education provided by Vatel Bordeaux?
The online education provided by Vatel has been overall good. They have provided us the right tools to continue learning and ensure that online education is the same quality as the one we would receive if we were to have face-to-face classes.
How helpful Vatel Bordeaux has been in offering you the resources/supports to learn from home?
The school provides their students with resources such as Zoom, Dropbox, Aimaira. In particular, this last one is quite useful because it helps us to check which homework we have, see our grades and check our timetable.
The coordination between the Vatel administration and the teachers is effective. All students receive an email before the class and with some information about what we will do during the courses.
How helpful are your teachers while studying online?
All of our teachers are great professionals and instructors. They ensure anyone gets lost and provide us with additional support such as presentations, record videos from previous classes and we keep in touch through emails and they will give us the full explanation.
As you are in the final year of Bachelor Program, you have to deal with a heavy workload, especially many group projects to carry on. How did you and your teammates manage to get through this?
Whenever I do group projects, we use the platform zoom and organize meetings in which we could each discuss and coordinate the assignment. After when everyone has clear their role we work individually on our own part.
The work is sent to the leader of the group, he/she gathers all the pieces together and we plan another meeting again to go through everything we did. This way, every team member can see each other’s work and contribute with any possible ideas or modifications.
If ever we need some help from anyone of our teammates, we ask them by messenger.
Staying at home all the time and balancing multiple things can be stressful for students. What is your advice for other students on managing time efficiently while learning remotely?
I guess everything is a matter of how well you organize yourself and the sense of responsibility you have. Therefore, I would advise students to do a planning of their week that includes both study time and leisure time. I think it is very important to dedicate your free time in doing something you enjoy that will positively influence your productivity and will help you to achieve a healthy work-life balance.
You want to read more testimonials of students about courses online and working efficiently at home? Let’s check out those of Ana Paz Sanchez Aranciba, Lynn Van Logtestijn or Alexandre Carton.