Let's Do It - Achieve Your Acca Goals!

By Author: Chris Surridge
Total Articles: 26
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This article might be a bit different from others. But as I can relate the story to commerce I think it would be helpful for ACCA students sitting for their June10 attempt. I would never have found this story if I never went to hospital!

In last few days, my grandmother was not feeling well and despite all the instructions we followed, she was not getting better. So we had to rush her to the hospital! Thank God she is much better now, continues her arguments with us over various things, and things look like they are getting back to normal. But during my time visiting her in the hospital, I met a mother who shared a wonderful story of her child.

After her twelfth Board exams, Hina Jamsheed's (a visually impaired student) mother prodded her to pursue a primary teacher training course, but Hina had other plans - she wanted to become a university lecturer in a commerce subject. And for that, she had to study BComm (an abbreviation for Bachelor of Commerce), an unlikely programme for a visually impaired student to take up.

But the intrepid girl accepted the challenge head on and took admission ...
... in the BComm course at the Fatima Jinnah College, where she is now an assistant professor. I had to seek help from my peers and teachers and somehow I managed. With a little extra effort, I learnt to make accounts and tables. With practice, you tend to become perfect, says the 31-year-old with a laugh.

She is one of the few visually impaired people who have studied accounts at the M.Phil level and is now pursuing her Ph.D in finance from the department of commerce, University of Karachi.

I dug further and asked more people if they have something similar to share. Dr Zakir Abbasi, officer on special duty agrees that the visually impaired students tend to only study humanities. They must take up commerce to further their career prospects. We urge them to think beyond history and political science, he says.

Those who do take up practical subjects tend to focus on the theory part - accountancy, income tax, mathematics and costing. As for the practical aspects, they do take the help from peers or family.

Masooma Ahmed, a visually impaired student pursuing her MComm at KU (Karachi University), does just that. While I was studying for my BComm, I used to attempt theory questions in taxation and accountancy. For the practical questions, I used to rely on the ‘writer' for making the tables. For me, it is difficult to study Commerce, but it can be done if someone in the family or a friend supports you, says Masooma, who, being the only child of her parents gets considerable family support.

If you are determined and focused on your goals, you can make a good corporate career even by taking up humanities. Thanks to the technological boom, visually impaired students can rise to become engineers, ACCA qualified accountants and MBAs. With the advent of computers that can talk, things are much simpler now.

The moral of the story is that there are no barriers large enough (even physical barriers) that you can't overcome if you have a strong desire to truly achieve your goals. Think about this article when you're preparing for your ACCA exams - the story of those visually impaired students who succeeded in their overwhelming goals. Hard work, determination, and a will to succeed can help you overcome your own difficulties (no matter what they are) and will push you to pass your ACCA exam.

Click here for more help with your ACCA exam and ACCA exam tips with TonySurridge.co.uk.