Hi! I’m Bojana.
My one great passion: words – be they in the spoken or the written form. For all my life I have been enchanted by the power of words, languages and writing. So I chose to study languages at university. I went into academic research, for over ten years I taught university classes (language and literature, economic and social history, among other things), I wrote two books and many more scientific articles (you can check out some of my publications here), and through my work with students and my own experience I know that when you have to sit down and produce a piece of writing words don’t always come easy. Even experienced researchers frequently struggle with writing. So I’ve dedicated a lot of my time to find out what causes these writing problems and what can be done about them. And I have come to the conclusion that writing like any other skill has to be taught and practiced. You are not just born with it. You don’t expect to be able to play a piano unless you’ve had piano lessons and hours and hours of practice. So why should it be any different with writing? Building on my own academic writing experience and my training as a writing coach I have embarked on a journey of teaching writing skills. I have worked individually with many university and IB students and have helped them with various internal assessments, essays, university applications and theses by teaching them the best tools and techniques to gain clarity, find their voice and make them comfortable with their writing. I have also designed writing courses specifically for the writing requirements of the IBDP, in particular the Extended Essay and the TOK essay, because they provide the opportunity to learn a lot in a relatively short period of time and because writing in groups is truly wonderful.
My other great passion: math. Do you have any idea what it means to be born into a family of mathematicians? Mom, dad, sister – all mathematicians. For one, back at school I was not allowed to be bad at math – no way that was going to happen. The other thing is, no matter how hard I tried to get away from it, it always kept pulling me in. Even when I decided to study something as unrelated to math as possible (Ancient Near Eastern Culture and Languages) I noticed the formulaic, clearly mathematical nature of the Semitic languages. I also ended up dealing with loads of numerical data, statistics and calculations in my research. Clearly, there was no escaping math. So I gave up resisting. One of my students writing her TOK essay had this epiphany: “It’s like math is a universal language!” And she was right. So much of what we know is based on or at least dependent on math – even the social sciences. So, yes, math has been following me around for most of my life and I have always found it fascinating. And here I am now for the past three years, tutoring math and teaching IB math revision courses. And I’m loving it. I love the beauty and the elegance of math and I love those moments when everything falls into place, when it all starts making sense to my students and they realize they can do it, that they have the confidence and can solve mathematical problems on their own.
I have other great passions – cats, for instance, as my facebook friends will probably have noticed. But that’s enough of me talking about me.
Here’s what some of my students have to say about me and my courses:
- “Dear Bojana, This course was truly a life-saver! It was really helpful and I feel a lot more confident with my EE now!! The tricks really helped and I am sure I can apply them for school as well. When I am here I feel so motivated and also because you are so caring and friendly I feel like I can work much better! I can’t say ‘thank you’ enough!!” Bianca, DIS on an Extended Essay Club
- “Thanks for your time and expertise. I had fun and now I have a good idea where I’m going with this essay. Your feedback was great and I love the hand outs you gave out – they are way helpful. I got to meet new people, which was also great, thanks.” May, VIS on a TOK Club
- “I got an A on my TOK Essay and a B on EE so I got all 3 extra points! Thank you again so much for your help! I really needed the points to get in the uni of my dreams.” Anastasia, AIS
Bojana’s CV
- 2017 founder of learn2know kg
- 2015 Writing Coach training
- 2014 – present Teacher at Go4IB
- 2014 PhD in Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Vienna
- 2009 – 2013 University Assistant at the Oriental Institute at the University of Vienna
- 2002 – 2008 Researcher at a project funded by “Fonds zur Förderung wissenschaftlicher Forschung”, Vienna
- 2002 – 2008 University lecturer at the Oriental Institute at the University of Vienna
- 2002 Master of Arts in Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Vienna
- 1998 – 2002 Teaching Assistant at the Oriental Institute at the University of Vienna
- 1995 Graduated from Danube International School with bilingual IB diploma