This probably won’t make much sense to anyone not in the UK, but here in the UK we have a long established distance learning organisation called the Open University. You can do genuine degrees, but at your own pace and at a lower cost than studying at a physical university.
I’m toying with the idea of doing an honours degree. Either music or literature, I think. (Ideally I would prefer film studies but there doesn’t seem to be any options for that). I’m the right side of 50 (just), but I work full time so it would have to be a part time thing over 6 years I’m thinking. I’ve had lots of experience of studying in the past, and I actually already have a degree in Philosophy and English from Glasgow uni, graduated 1995.
Why do it? I just miss studying and learning, and I want to give it a go now I am more mature and motivated. I feel I squandered my time at uni and just did the minimum for my 2:2 degree. It will be purely recreational, I’m not expecting any big career change or anything. I would just pay the fees monthly, which seems affordable.
And (I know this might sound stupid) I have just recently watched Educating Rita for the first time. Amazing film, and has really got me thinking about the importance of arts study for its own sake. (Yes, I know it’s not like that in real life – I won’t get weekly tutorials in a fancy office with Michael Caine and a bottle of whiskey…) It’s sparked some desire in me.
So just wondered who has had experience of this? Particularly as a mature student, working full time and with a family at the same time? My main worry is it would feel too isolated. I would ideally like to engage in tutorials and get a chance to talk to other students, although Covid if nothing else has probably limited that to online meetings for the foreseeable future. Although I would imagine/hope that once restrictions start lifting there would be the opportunity for some in-person events.
I know there are more specialist forums online for this type of discussion, but you know, it’s the Afterword so you always get interesting responses here. I’m interested in anyone’s experience of distance learning.
I think you have the right attitude going into it, to treat it as a positive experience for its own sake rather than having expectations of any big career boost.
You should think carefully about the course you want to take, not just the initial interest that would spur some reading but whether you want to get into the whole research and writing element. Probably worth looking at the structure of courses that appeal to you and searching out some online feedback.
And for what it’s worth, there’s likely to be a lot more distance learning in the future, but the Open Uni is the one that has a lot of experience and is most likely to do it properly.
I mentor a lad (now in his early 30s) at work who has just completed his OU degree, having started as an apprentice straight from school. He did the practical stuff on day release (actually a week at a time at the local poly).
Since starting he’s worked full time, got married, become a parent. I honestly don’t know where he found the time.
Back in 1986 to 1990 I did a BA with the OU, you have the right motivation, Arthur, go for it, some of the lectures back then were so dated as to be hilarious. Better now , no doubt.
Your average Afterworder’s BBC Four habits mean that watching some hairy bearded blokes from the seventies on the telly in the middle of the night is pretty much a busman’s holiday.
Good on you Artie. I’ve had thoughts in that direction myself. Hopefully assists in avoiding brain ossification.
Out of interest, how much are the fees for the course you’re considering?
£1,056 a year. A full honours degree would take six years. Not cheap, but I understand in England it’s even more expensive (I’m in Scotland).
At the moment I’m thinking about doing an access course which takes about ten months and seems to be only £238, just to test the waters and see if I can do it.
Thanks and good luck
Blimey, that’s a lot cheaper than it is in England – it’s more like £3k a year down here. It’s something I’ve thought about from time to time too, but have never really had the spare cash for.
Just had another look and noticed the courses are all eligible for a Tuition Fee Loan, which doesn’t need to be repaid until your income reaches £27k.
Yup, certainly seems a lot cheaper up here. I don’t envy you lot in England with your eye-watering tuition fees.
With that loan scheme, you can put the whole thing on the never never though. For someone like me, whose career has long since slid down the dumper, the chances of ever earning enough again to have to pay it back seem pretty remote.
I’ve done a couple of courses with them but not degrees. The first was a diploma in music, which I did just out of interest. It was worth it, but there wasn’t much direct interaction with the tutors, apart from sending in essays and papers, although things may have changed. There was a Summer school which probably would have been fun, but unfortunately, I had to miss it due to family illness. It was mainly about the theory of music and its development, and although I did learn things, I think for this kind of thing, you do need direct contact with a tutor who can for example, play you through examples of harmonisations, and show where you’re going wrong. There were taped lessons, it was about 20 years ago, but it’s not quite the same.
The other was for my job, to keep my knowledge up to date. That was a bit more of a slog.
The only advice I’d pass on is that you have to keep up a regular pattern of working. Ten hours a week might not sound like much, but if you slip in one week, it soon piles up. But once you get into the swing of it, it can be done. I realised how disorganised I had been when I was a full-time student! Anyway, I’d recommend it, so good luck.
A diploma in music, sounds interesting. Is that a one year thing then (or two years part time)? I get confused about what are diplomas and what are certificates etc.
It was two years, one module in each year. I’ve just had a quick look, and I can’t see the same courses. Their new courses seem to take more account of new technologies, and a broader range of music, reasonably enough. The one I did was classically based, with some acknowledgement of popular and non-western music. But in a two year part-time course, you have to have some focus.
It was interesting, and I did understand more about how music is put together, and with Western music, if you learn about classical music you also understand more about popular music. It all uses the same chords and scales.
It didn’t change my tastes though, although I did get more out of the music I liked. After it, I understood, up to a point, the innovations and influence of Wagner, which I hadn’t before. I still found his music pretty dull.
Friend of mine is doing an MA in Music of some sort (theory? History?). He sent me an unintentionally hilarious paper about Heavy Metal. He’s loving it though.
I did my maths degree with them, 1980-1985 and found it an enormously enriching experience. I’m quite strongly introverted, so the “lone distance learner” learning style suited my personality – learning styles vary widely from person to person, so give some serious thought to whether it’s a good fit for you. I realise that the learning elements have changed enormously since the ‘80s: the network of local study centres, which enabled sometimes weekly tutorials, has been greatly reduced; my wife did her eng. lit. OU degree in the 20-teens, and had to travel further for only a handful of tutorials on each module (though she said they were excellent). The fondly-remembered (by me, anyway) TV and radio broadcasts, cassettes and filmstrips (ah! S101 memories!) have all been replaced by CDs and DVDs. Heck, for all I know, THEY might in turn have been replaced by streaming audio/video! Finally, I don’t know whether the wonder that was Summer School still exists, but it was wonderful to go to Reading University for a week every summer and play at being a “real” (I know!) student.
Anyway, it was a great experience. My main advice, echoing that already given, is not to let yourself get behind. 10-15 hours a week is a lot to find, and once you slip, catching up is very hard to do.
So – good luck to you! The OU is a terrific institution, and their approach to education is not only admirable, but enormously enjoyable.
I do need to think about the learning style. I think of myself as introverted as well, but quite honestly when I think about it I feel I will need contact with other humans to keep me sane and keep the stress at bay. On the website it does give the impression there are lots of student groups and suchlike, and it’s up to you how much you want to engage with them.
The access course I mentioned about does sound like the right first step to get a taste of this and see if it suits me.
A good mate of mine also did his Maths degree with the OU – around ten years after you, Paul. He used to flummox my brain on a Friday evening, standing at the bar over a few pints of Doom Bar, trying to explain to me (decent A Level in Maths) the inner workings of Fourier Transformations or suchlike. He was that excited by the elegance and inspiration he found within the subject he didn’t notice that I wasn’t answering, I was just sipping. I think I drank 4 or 5 to his one some weeks.
I did my Maths O- and A-levels a year early ‘cos I
was a clever sodhad a brilliant teacher. I then got a distinction in my first year engineering maths module (a third of my course) at university.Since then I have barely had to do anything more complicated than Ohm’s law (V=IR).
My eldest was struggling with her A-level Maths this time last year. I looked at her homework and promptly employed a tutor. I guess the brain is like any other muscle if you don’t excercise it.
I know what you mean – a couple of years ago, I wanted to find out if I could still understand some of the group theory and linear algebra topics that I’d covered in my OU degree courses. I no longer had my OU course books (sacrificed when we upped sticks from the West Midlands to the Scottish islands), but found that MIT offered some free open courses, based on video lectures and a renowned textbook just called “Algebra”. I survived the first few lectures, but eventually just ran out of intellectual stamina. I discovered I could no longer focus with the intense concentration needed to follow the very abstract reasoning of the proofs. Bit sad, really, but I guess that’s the ageing brain for you!
For a ‘laugh’ we both sat an A-level Maths past paper at half term. I could answer one of the five questions.
My wife did GCSE maths a couple of years ago and got a respectable grade, 5 I think. I could keep up with that but my son’s A level maths was beyond me which is sort of what I found at technical college 40 years ago. I got BTEC level 3 which was supposed to be A level equivalent but I struggled with the maths. By the 4th year, which was the first of two for the advanced course, I was just turning up as it was day release from my apprenticeship so compulsory but I knew I’d never do the 5th year.
Maths lover here, I also had a good teacher.
I’ve kept a lot of my O level, A level and degree exam papers, and I have to say, some of the maths papers, that I pretty much sailed through at the time, I haven’t got the first clue today. “Goes to show what good exam technique I had” is the best validation of this phenomenon I can come up with.
My favourite maths thing is the Birthday problem, as it seems so preposterously “wrong”, but is fabulously right.
I can also recite the quadratic equation solution formula off pat and know that to theoretically get a projectile the furthest amount away for where you throw/hit/fire it, you need to throw/hit/fire it at 45 degrees to the horizontal, as the equation for “length of throw/hit/fire” depends on the sin of 2 alpha, where alpha is the “angle of elevation” and the maximum a sin function can be is 1, and that’s a 90 degrees, so 2 alpha = 90, thus alpha =45 degrees for maximum length.
No, hang on, wait…!
Is the birthday problem that thing about the probability of two people in a group sharing the same birthday? Truly mind blowing, that one!
My daughter is studying engineering and having to do some catch up on Maths with her A-level being cancelled. She texted me with a geometry/wave problem. I panicked!
Luckily google reminded me of SOH CAH TOA, and then I could get it (and brain worked well enough to formulate it into an easier way of looking at the problem, so I looked like I knew what I was doing). I then got out while the going was good.
Succotash is a method for kids to make cash
Selling dope to the brother man instead of the other man
Brothers and sisters,
I’m talking ’bout
BASS!
….ahhh that’s better
You might like this. The (secondary Maths teacher) author used to be the singer in The Dawn Chorus, which is how I met him, and is often the musical turn on Radio 4’s More Or Less.
https://www.tarquingroup.com/poems-and-paradoxes.html
I doubt I could pass O level maths now, in fact I’m sure I couldn’t. My brain just turns to mush. Twang Jr loves it though.
Not OU, but I am doing a Distance Learning MBA (University of Warwick) – it’ll take about two years, soup to nuts.
Balancing everything can be tricky. We’re new house, new country, and I’m new job. It’s manageable, and the manageability is easier when it is stuff you enjoy or have a passion for. Our Leadership module was easy and interesting. Operations Management was a PITA and seemed to really drag.
If you’re doing something you enjoy, you’ll find it’s easier.
OOAA
Thanks. Yes I intend to restrict myself to topics I think I might be interested in… With perhaps a few little challenges in there to take myself out of my comfort zone.
Thanks for the input everyone. It’s helped to give me the resolution to go for it. I’ve enrolled for this access to arts and humanities course, which is a taster that runs from May to February, and is a much cheaper alternative to start with before jumping into one of the main courses. Will report back on my progress!
Does this mean you can sign us into the Students Union for cheap drink Arthur?
50p vodka night on Thursdays.
I did something similar over here in Ireland a few years ago. It was a 12-module degree that you could do leisurely, one a year for 12 years, or as fast as 4 a year and get it done in three years. My wife and I did ours over 4 years breaking it down to 2, 3, 4 and 3 modules a year. It was spendy for sure (think the whole thing cost us about 10 grand each) but I recall there were some benefits at the time – plus I got a student card. Discounts ahoy!
We’re both delighted we did it and although it wasn’t the intention, it indirectly benefited both our careers which was great. It is true that it’s a lot of work and you don’t want to fall behind. Certainly not if you’re doing four modules in a single year with 3 assignments and an exam in every module!
When I think back now I wonder how we did it while working full time. Every evening from September to May we’d get in from work, go into our makeshift study and read, read, read and write. It was very intense and we’d spend all our time talking about what we’d do with all the spare time when we were finished. You know what we did with it with all that spare time when we were finished? Absolutely nothing!
So my advice is – the time will pass anyway, better you spend some of it on a little extra education along the way. All the best with it.
Thanks. A friend of mine is just coming to the end of an Open University degree in maths and statistics. He says it takes over your life, but in a good way. Sounds like that sums it up.
My wife has been doing 2 hours Spanish immersion since Christmas. I struggle to find 5 minutes for duolingo.
I don’t know how she does it.
I have huge admiration for people who get degrees while raising families and having real jobs. They sometimes seem undervalued to those who do it the “proper” way, but honestly that is a piece of cake in comparison.
22 years ago I was an Open University Tutor. I did it for a couple of years, and only gave it up because we had just had kids and quite frankly I thought I’d be too knackered to do it justice any more. Tutors are very committed to their students and as I was a Level 1 tutor, they needed a lot of commitment, being new to study. As an organisation the OU were fab to work for, and I’d definitely consider doing it again, maybe when I (semi) retire.
As for the students, yes, it was hard work for them, but it was hopefully enriching and I remain full of admiration for those who complete OU courses. You do need to be committed and focussed but if you already have both of those traits you shouldn’t have any difficulties.
Oh, that’s interesting Nick. Are you a teacher in your “real” job?
I am hoping for some good tutors I can really engage with. I think I have the determination to take on the challenge… my study skills are probably a bit rusty and need polishing though. Focus might be a slight issue. I’m an incurable dreamer and procrastinator! We’ll see.
Yes, although as a Dept Manager and Specialist Dyslexia Teacher these days I don’t actually take full classes any more.
Sounds like you done the right thing…the first course you do should be great for brushing up on study skills etc. Time management and essay planning will be uppermost on your agenda I would think. Don’t be put off, any adult who has worked and tried to balance their life well shouldn’t have any difficulties with the time management and essay planning can be learned (or re-learned!) quite quickly. Good luck!
Have you still got the beard, the tank top and the cords?
Ha, I always got the impression they were doing their best to rid themselves of that image but it didn’t quite work did it?
That sounds like a yes to me…
Hi everyone, just thought I would update on this thread as I quite enjoyed this little conversation back in March this year. Oh how youthful and naive I seemed back then….:)
I did indeed do the “Access to Arts and Humanities” course I mentioned above. I’m not sure why I thought it ran until February, because it was actually only to December. I just handed in my final assignment last night and that’s the end of the course now while I wait on my result. I’m confident of a pass though, so no worries on that score.
My thoughts?
– The work itself was easier than I had thought it would be. I suppose it was a bit below my level as I have studied at degree level previously (although I was worried about being rusty), and it seems to be intended as quite a broad taster course covering basic things like essay writing, researching, referencing, etc. I managed to get good marks on my assignments without too much effort.
– We did art (protest art and modern art), poetry (war poetry and hip hop), history (Chartism) and a few other topics, so there was plenty of interesting and wide ranging stuff. I particularly liked looking more closely at Grayson Perry, plus Paula Rego was a new name to me.
– As I feared, it was rather lonely. Apart from one to one calls with my tutor, there were a couple of group zoom calls to focus on the assignments (but everyone was blanked out and muted and you just used the chat box for questions, so it was hardly a discussion). I was also in a Whatsapp group with a few other students, which was quite good actually. But the official Open Uni online forums were a bit quiet (nothing like this place) and got quieter as the course went on.
– In fact, it was so detached that at times it didn’t feel real at all, and even some long stretches where I forgot I was doing the course at all and had to log back in and catch up on things.
– My commitment to it definitely waned, and I went from an enthusiastic “one hour every day” approach at the start, to just paying lip service to the coursework and focusing on doing only that which was specifically required by the assignments. This definitely reminded me of my uni days…
– In the end I feel I’m not motivated enough for the real thing, and have decided against going to to a full degree course. At least for the moment anyway. Seems sad, but I need to be realistic. I think it’s both the fact that I have so little time for it, plus (as antisocial as I am) I still need a group of people with face to face contact to make something seem real and to keep me feeling connected to it, that kind of camaraderie. The most memorable bits of my student days were the canteen moments, the downtime where everyone lets off steam and feels a common purpose. Plus, probably most importantly, I don’t really have the sticking power for long term commitment to something in which I’m not totally invested: I think I’m better suited as a hobbyist, tinkering in things as and when they catch my interest.
As Rita says at the end of Educating Rita, “It might be worthless in the end, but I had a choice. I chose”. So if nothing else it’s good to know I have choice: I have the ability to choose to do an academic pursuit if I want to. At some point. Maybe in retirement, who knows!