On Saturday, 11th of August, this year’s eight meeting of the college student scholarship holders was held at the premises of ASA Prevent Group. This monthly meeting was truly special and interesting. The first hour of the meeting was marked by a presentation delivered by the scholarship holders of the Foundation, Emina Sljivak and Nermina Ramic, who wanted to share their knowledge of economics with their colleagues who were present. During the second part of the meeting, the students had the opportunity to talk with teacher Ramo about his book, sharing impressions and posing questions.

The meeting started with Emina and Nermina’s presentation titled “Consumer behavior”. Emina Sljivak and Nermina Ramic are in their third year of studies at the Faculty of Economics, University of Tuzla so they decided to share their knowledge on the topic related to their studies and which they both find to be useful and interesting. In the course of the presentation, the two first talked about who are consumers and what it means to be one and the slowly introduced more complex terms and processes, touching upon “purchasing power” and factors which influence consumers and encourage him or her to spend money. Scholarship holders joined the discussion on what “consumer behavior” means and with the help of the lecturers drew a conclusion that it concerns a process prior to, during and after purchasing items. As the discussion continued, emphasis was also put on the large role which the relationship between the consumer and the person selling and/or producing goods or services has in the process.

A part of the presentation was also dedicated to the importance of consumer’s motivation and how people are rarely aware of their needs the way they are aware of their goals. The girls concluded he presentation by highlighting the advice of the marketing experts: a satisfied customer is the best possible advertisement. Besides expressing agreement with these words, the scholarship holders also praised the presentation and the decision of their colleagues to be this month’s lecturers.

The second part of the meeting was entirely dedicated to teacher Ramo’s book, “Uci, pisi…”, a copy of which he gave to all the scholarship holders present at the last month’s meeting, and students’ thoughts about it. Scholarship holders shared their impressions on the book and expressed their delight and praise for the book and teacher Ramo. In addition to overall impressions, each scholarship holder highlighted something that they liked about the book the most; for some it was the poetry section of it while for others it was the stories about teacher’s travels, stories which concern real people who were once scholarship holders and are now grown, fully developed people. Others still said that the book made them want to put in even greater effort in the volunteering meetings so that no time is wasted and that the younger scholarship holders can truly learn and enjoy the time they spend together.

Prompted by the thoughts and comments of the scholarship holders, teacher Ramo shared several more stories and anecdotes, some of them related to the stories from this book, but also some which will be a part of the next one. What was common for all of them were valuable pieces of advice and words of wisdom teacher Ramo stressed during the meeting. These included the importance of constantly honing our skills and learning new things, but also doing what we truly like and enjoy. Needless to say, this monthly meeting of the college student scholarship holders was spent in a wonderful and productive atmosphere.

Marina Cvjetković