Open university degree course

[Raymond Reddington]

Hopefully this is in the right section,

I’m looking at an Open Uni degree.

I work a weekend shift which is 3 long days per week.

I have a young family so I’m reasonably busy on my days off but i do also have the house to myself for 6 hours on 3 of those 4 days off, and the other day my Mrs is around to share childcare duties and obviously we like to spend a bit of time together as a family.

Has anyone got any real world experience of these degree courses who may be able to tell me if it’s achievable to do a degree course “full time” (3 years) in my circumstances?

It’s been a long time since I’ve had mates at uni but to be honest they didn’t seem to put in much more than 10 hours per week from what I saw!

I’d be keen to get it done in 3 years instead of stringing it out to 6 for the part time option if at all possible.

Any thoughts much appreciated and I have of course asked the OU for their advice too.


Thank you

[frank hovis]

I did a fully online Masters over 3 years ago

I was / am working full time so had go in before work started to do assignments and other work
My other half worked weekends so study at weekends was difficult
My son is at primary school so it can be done

[JoshSm]

It will depend on the subject of the degree, plus your ability. It's achievable but as ever it depends!

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

I don't know if you are doing it for fun or for career advancement.

All I can say is when I was a recruiter I was always very impressed if somebody had the staying power to get an OU degree. Any muppet can do a few hours a week at Uni and spend all day and night in the pub and get a regular degree.

Good luck with your choice

[renmure]

I did 2 conventional undergraduate degrees and a post grad one. I enjoyed being a student and found it all fairly easy.

I later decided to do an OU degree for fun / something to do / a challenge. Have to confess I chucked it after a year due to the real commitment it required. It certainly required far more discipline and application than I'd expected and gained new found respect for the folk who go through the process while living a full life especially with no previous academic study background. It was actually a bit of an eye opener.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

renmure said:

I did 2 conventional undergraduate degrees and a post grad one. I enjoyed being a student and found it all fairly easy.

I later decided to do an OU degree for fun / something to do / a challenge. Have to confess I chucked it after a year due to the real commitment it required. It certainly required far more discipline and application than I'd expected and gained new found respect for the folk who go through the process while living a full life especially with no previous academic study background. It was actually a bit of an eye opener.

I think that is what I was trying to say

Very well put

[BoRED S2upid]

Isn’t there an element of face to face or online lecturers? So you may have to be flexible rather than only being able to do it on Wednesdays and Fridays.

[gangzoom]

JoshSm said:

It will depend on the subject of the degree, plus your ability. It's achievable but as ever it depends!

Totally agree, and don't forget about motivation.

Let's be honest most undergraduate degrees take 3 years plus because half of University is learning about who you are as a person versus actual academic learning/teaching. I think most older, more mature, and focused adults can learn/absorb most undergraduate academic work far quicker. However when you have a job, family life taking over your time, you need to be really motivated to take on extra academic qualifications that are recognised especially to masters level and beyond.

Personally I find academic work really enjoyable, as long as it in a topic of my chosing and I can see a direct benefit to my actual work. But I'm quite lucky as I have a PhD to fall back on interms of understanding how to research, write, reference, present academic papers, journals etc. So for me taking on extra academic qualifications along side work is mainly about learning/interest, if I had to learn how to use reference managers, do library searches from a blank base line it'll be a different experience.

I've literally just had my final grade come through for my Chartered Management Institute (CMI) Level 7 Senior leaderships apprenticeship (Masters equivalent), it's by far the highest scoring academic work I've achieved ever, I barely scrapped through University exams back in the day, including been only 1 of 2 people that failed a particularly easy paper from a year of 180 . I was suppose get XXhrs allocated/protected hrs each week from work but the reality was lots of 5-6am writing before work starts. I didn't mind because the academic work directly correlates to my actual work, and having a clear deadlines ensures I get the work done, where as I believe the OU stuff has no deadlines??

I can correlated my career progression almost perfectly with the various academic qualifications I've done in my spare time since leaving Uni, so my motivation for extra learning isn't just down to interest alone, it's also my way to increase my worth to what ever organisation I'm in. The question for me now is what next, upgrade to a MBA, or side step into something totally different (like law).

Edited by gangzoom on Tuesday 8th July 20:54

[ozzuk]

I did an OU masters, part time, I think 4 years but I took a 6 month gap. This was alongside a stressful full time job. I'd say I averaged 10 hours extra a week, more when assignment due. I mostly enjoyed it, but it can be intense, work paid for mine which added to the pressure. Great feeling to get it done though. I think if it wasn't career related and for pure learning it would be a breeze.

To add, you do need to be disciplined, it's pretty much all self directed, if you choose not to attend tutorials, or join in forums then no one encourages you.

[BoRED S2upid]

Isn’t there an element of face to face or online lecturers? So you may have to be flexible rather than only being able to do it on Wednesdays and Fridays.

[CCCS]

BoRED S2upid said:

Isn t there an element of face to face or online lecturers? So you may have to be flexible rather than only being able to do it on Wednesdays and Fridays.

All tutorials are online and almost all have recordings available for download. Students can download recordings either because they couldn’t attend or want a reminder.

There is some face to face. It’s for some modules such as science modules with laboratory work or IT modules with Cisco accreditation, for example. Even with these examples there are alternatives to face to face so students aren’t at a disadvantage if they can’t do face to face.

[CCCS]

ozzuk said:

I did an OU masters, part time, I think 4 years but I took a 6 month gap. This was alongside a stressful full time job. I'd say I averaged 10 hours extra a week, more when assignment due. I mostly enjoyed it, but it can be intense, work paid for mine which added to the pressure. Great feeling to get it done though. I think if it wasn't career related and for pure learning it would be a breeze.

To add, you do need to be disciplined, it's pretty much all self directed, if you choose not to attend tutorials, or join in forums then no one encourages you.

That’s perhaps for postgraduate study. For undergraduate study student engagement is monitored and contact made where it’s thought support might be wanted.

[wyson]

What about meeting the ladies? Surely the main point of going to uni? Can’t believe someone wants to do a degree to actually learn something?

[Sycamore]

I did an engineering bachelors over 6 years. You could do it in 3 reasonably easily.
I don't think I ever attended a live tutorial, and the only contact I had with any tutors was over email. Most had their own careers and did the open uni stuff part time. The only 'in-person' stuff I did was 2 maths exams, and a week long residential at bath university. Covid cancelled the second week that was due.

Somewhat different in that I already worked in engineering and wasn't doing the OU for the 'learning' aspect But the company I worked at offered to pay for it so I'd generally just go straight to the assignments (generally one due every 6 weeks) and figure it out from there.

Many on my course took it very seriously and were doing it as their foot in the door to engineering, but those already working in the industry were noticeably more chilled out.

I recall there being lots of daily/weekly activities they wanted me to do, both online and working through textbooks, but only a small portion (~5%) of these were actually needed as they were referenced or tied into one of the assignments. They weren't mandatory and provided the assignments were submitted there was no issue. Those would've been the learning aspect that I didn't quite do properly

[Sycamore]

gangzoom said:

where as I believe the OU stuff has no deadlines??

Edited by gangzoom on Tuesday 8th July 20:54

I'm not sure what course wouldn't have deadlines.

I did an OU BEng, and each module would typically have 3-7 assignments which each had a specific deadline they'd need to be submitted for.

A colleague left one til the last minute (literally) and had some troubles uploading their assignment to the portal. The tutors can (and usually would) allow some leniency but this one in particular didn't fancy it, and he got a score of zero because his assignment was uploaded a few minutes after the midnight deadline