Beauty of learning in a hands-on way
STUDENT Athena Tsouvallaris wants to build a beauty empire and is learning how to create a healthy business.
The 18-year-old from Birmingham, is studying for a business and professional services diploma at BMet.
BMet’s Professional Services Academy programme provides work experience placements, company visits, lectures from business professionals and workshop activities. It is delivered in partnership with the industry’s leading national and regional employers.
Athena embarked on the diploma course in September last year and will finish in June 2019. She wants to own a small chain of beauty salons one day.
She says: ‘Being on a course that’s practical and theorybased means I understand all sides to operating a business.
‘I’ve studied everything from accounting to marketing, HR and customer service. The practical sessions are great as they bring to life what we learn in the classroom.’
Athena says she has discovered roles and business procedures she did not know existed.
‘I’ve been to the offices of Gateley, GVA, KPMG and Wesleyan, finding out about the work that goes on in different departments,’ she adds. ‘It’s amazing how busy and fastpaced this environment is.’
Business representatives also come into classes at the college to discuss the jobs they do.
Athena says: ‘BNP Paribas Personal Finance spoke to us about their apprenticeship scheme and Deloitte ran a session on interview skills.
‘It’s not just them talking to us — we get involved, too. Deutsche Bank set us challenges and we pitched our ideas to them in a Dragons’ Den competition. You learn a lot this way.’
The best thing about the course, says Athena, has been the chance to experience a business environment first hand, during a week-long internship at Lloyds.
‘There are teams that look after trading, fraud, loans, auditing and marketing,’ she says.
The students are taught how to put a full plan in place to get their businesses off to the right start. BMet is one of the largest further education colleges in the UK, providing a wide range of education, training and apprenticeship courses in the West Midlands. It also has centres serving Erdington, Brierley Hill and Kidderminster.