Retrospective regret in hospitality graduates about their misvaluation of finance track courses during study

It is typical that tourism and hospitality management (THM) students negatively perceive finance track courses, misvalue their future benefits, and hardly consider them relevant to a hospitality career. However, perceptions can change over time. Accordingly, we investigated the change in student thoughts of finance courses longitudinally in a qualitative panel at two intervals (before and four years after graduation). Our observations indicated a maturity effect which mainly revealed itself in lengthier (shorter) responses at time 2 (time 1), expressing regret (criticism) to some extent in statements that convey mixed (negative) perceptions of 'course value' ('course content' and 'course execution').