djuk

Hi All,

At the age of 26 I'm looking to revisit something I should have done.. but didn't... during my rebelious teens - get a degree.

This isn't for any particular career move or progression, I just always meant to do it and never did for a number of reasons.

Whilst holding down a full time job I can't see many other options apart from Open University. With this in mind has anybody had any experience with OU and can offer any advice?

Thanks

David

markr1963

Yes, indeed. Been there, done that

One thing to consider is whether your chosen degree is related to your current career. If it is then it's harder because you do your day job then evenings and weekends are taken up with related stuff. First year or 2 will probably be ok. Beyond that you're going to need have some commitment. If it's a different subject you should be ok for the duration as interest will keep you going.
Those with OU degrees are increasingly scoring points with prospective employers as training with experience goes along way.

Also, choose an OU degree that has summer schools You get mature student types cramming 3 years undergrad socialising into a week - it's as wild as you want

Iain Young

I guess it depends on the course you want to take. I did start doing a technology related (computing) degreee with them a while ago, but the materials they were using were so hopelessly out of date, that it was pretty much useless.

I decided to start learning German as a second language recently, so was looking at their website for information on courses. Whilst reading the blurb I found several spelling and grammatical errors. Not a great advertisement for a language course.

Not impressed with what I've seen so far, but as I say, other courses may be better...

boxst

Hopelessly out of date but easy? I have got a long way in my career, but I don't have a degree. Annoyingly companies appear to check the $1K University of Mexico degrees these days ..

So I am looking to do something easy, related to my work, that will give me a degree.

Steve

markr1963

Easy? OU degrees require considerable effort. You would like to think an OU degree would carry some weight over and above U of M degrees.

Jerome

I started doing an OU degree in IT some while ago.

They claim their degrees are specially designed for the busy professional. Maybe a busy professional with no life or social commitments.

They claimed the degree work would be around 15 hours per week. That is a very conservative estimate IMO.

Having said all that, because the degrees are so hard, the OU is regarded IIRC the 3rd best uni after Oxford/Cambridge.

Interestingly, the OU refuse to publish the percentage of people who actually complete a degree with them, because the figure is so small.

Again, having said that, even 1 or 2 years of study would probably be worthwhile.

Proby521

iTrader: (1)

I know how you are feeling, but I've got to 31 now and at least every other month or so wish I had done a degree. Not so much for my career (I have a well paid job, and it's interesting), but more so to say I have a degree. Obviously would have to be a subject that 'keeps me interested', and thought if I did it in some way relating to my job it would be of more use! Looked at OU courses a few times and quite literally 'thought' the question you are asking.

Proby

ronjeramy

iTrader: (1)

Like whats already been said above the workload does take up more than what they state as being only 15 hours a week, I found that it was probably a bit more. Another factor is the cost of each and every unit, they get more expesive as you get into them, if memory serves me corect over £1000 per unit as you get to the latter stages

Timwinner

iTrader: (3)

My Mrs just completed one, It was tough going and whilst holding down a job it start to take over both our lives to a certain extent.
Looking back on it its worth it now but at the time it was a LOT of work, Its a massive comitment, It felt like a much bigger comitment then when I was at Uni.

If its for you and its something you want to do. Go for it, nothing to lose.

Iain Young

Some of it was so out of date as to be useless (half the course material was talking about reel to reel drives for computers). The C programming course was actually a bit better, but was teaching some very bad techniques and programming practices.

As already said by others, an OU course is not easy. In a lot of ways it is harder than a full time University course. You have the same amount of work to do, but have to fit it in around work instead of doing it on campus. A major commitments is required

john_s

iTrader: (1)

A good thing about the OU though is that you can just do one course and see how you like it and how it suits you as a method of study. If you don't like it, you're not committed to doing more.

Another is that you don't have to commit to any particular degree. You can get a named degree if you like by studying the required courses, but equally, you can just string together a collection of courses that you find interesting and gain an open degree that way.

Lydia72

My OH did a degree with the OU, had a year off, and then did his Masters with them too.
It was nothing at all to do with career advancement but his subject matter was relevant to his job and it was just something he fancied doing.
Quite a few of his work colleagues started around the same time but AFAIK none of them stuck with it past the first year so yes it would be interesting to know what percentage drop out.
OH's job can be all or nothing (especially on a night shift) so generally he didn't have to do all his studying at home but even so I can't tell you how many times we had to turn down social invitations because he had an assignment coming up. We don't live in each other's pockets and we don't have children so I think that made a difference, he knew he could lock himself away upstairs and I wouldn't moan (well he said he was studying up there...)
Having lived with it all for eight years I know I couldn't even attempt it myself and I really admire anyone who can. Someone did comment once that by the time OH finished studying he would be nearly forty, the answer to that was he would be forty anyway so might as well be forty with a degree than forty without.

Henrik

iTrader: (5)

I'm on my last year with the open uni this year

I started out doing a mathematics and computing named degree, but since then I've changed to an "open degree" (i.e. unnamed, but still a BSc) as I wanted to do courses that weren't in the specified syllabus.

I've been doing it for ages, because I've had a couple of years out and generally I've only done a maximum of 60 credits a year. The first year I did 90 and that was quite tough!

Timewise, I think it depends on what courses you do and your background knowledge of the subject. Some courses I spend absolute ages with, others it's one day per assignment (usually four in a course) and two days revising before the exam (mainly programming ones, as I know the subject reasonably well already). This is not to say the subjects are that easy, though - lots of people on the forums seem to struggle with the computing courses.

Cost wise I've had most of my courses paid for by my employers, so essentially it's been a free degree, although it's been bloody hard work at times.

My only experience of "real" uni was back in sweden when I did about 6 months of a master of engineering course. That was lectures from 8 to 5 four days a week and extra course work in the evenings, so in comparison, the OU feels like a walk in the park, but then I have chosen subjects I'd find "easier" on purpose.

If you have a spare bit of time, give it a go. The OU suits my lifestyle a lot better than going to e.g. Birkbeck uni and doing an evening course, as I just can't live such a regimented lifestyle. With the OU I can study whenever I feel like it, within reason.

Fabioso

I completed a self funded BSc degree with the OU a few years back. As people have already stated here it requires significant commitment and will power. When I studied the cost of each course was relatively cheap, I understand that has now changed although I expect the course materials are more advanced.

Ironically, I started the degree to help facilitate a career change direction but by a sheer twist of fate and luck that happened after 10 month into the first year of study! I think though it definitely helped at the job interview Made it quite alot harder to carry on with it though

I would say "go for it" but be sure you are clear about the committment required. Every exam I every attended always had plenty of empty tables where the students quit the course and that would just be a waste of money.

Just to put it into a context in my day, I remember they would say 60 point courses needed around 15 hours per week. 360 points got you a degree. 15 hours per week is 2 hours per day every day with one day being 3 hours. If you miss one day you then have to do 4 hours the next to catch up. Get a week behind and things very quickly go pear shaped

Alternatively you could do the whole lot over the weekend or a bit here and there but for me with my lack of discipline that would have been a recipe for being very behind.

I once did 90 points in one year whilst working full-time and that was really tough. I would say once you get into level 3 courses that 60 points would be more than enough in one year. Realistically the degree is a commitment of at least 4-6 years if you work full-time.

Glad I did it now though it's all in the past

Hope that helps

Henrik

iTrader: (5)

This is true, I started back in 2002 I think and I'm only just finishing now! And that's with a "lowly" BSc, not a BSc with honours (300 vs 360 credits)