BEIJING: A study lounge is a place frequented by people with a clear purpose. And it is interesting to see some “idealists” running a business that promotes learning.
Almost all the people who visit a study lounge have an academic or professional exam to clear. For instance, a 37-year-old doctor surnamed Zhao was a frequent visitor to a study lounge near his home in Beijing since last October after it had just opened. At the time he was preparing for the entrance exam for an on-job postgraduate degree.
Zhao had been looking for such a quiet place for a while. He had even taken a bus to the Capital Library of China to study there, but the commute took a lot of his time and it was difficult to find a place to have lunch near the library. Of course, there is a university just behind the hospital he works for, but he could not go there to study because the classrooms were almost always full during the day.
Zhao finds the environment in a study lounge ideal for studying. “It’s difficult to study at home, as there are too many people around,” says Zhao. The newly opened study lounge helped him prepare well for and pass the postgraduate entrance exam and save time, too.
For Wang Xiaohuan, a 29-year-old professional in the financial sector in Shanghai, a study lounge is the best place to prepare for his upcoming certified public accountant exam. He visited several study lounges in Shanghai to study when the public libraries were closed due to the epidemic, and even found time to study in one such lounge near his hotel during a business trip to Beijing. Wang is insensitive to the “high fees” of a study lounge and instead more interested in the experience and service.
– The Daily Mail-China Daily News exchange item
