im doing an open uni degree!!!!!

Welcome to study hell ? Only joking, congratulations, that's fabulous news.

Good luck! that's great news. I'm doing an OU degree, its hard work but i am enjoying it.

Welcome to the club! I'm another OU-er, I'm doing the Open degree unless I finally settle on something specific! I'm really enjoying the freedom it gives me.

Good luck!

We are fabulous OU-ers!!

I'm half way thorugh my degree?

Good Luck!

I'd love to do an open degree.

I've been thinking about this both for career enhancement and personal pride purposes. Considering a Busines Studies with something degree. I'm 34, left school with 3 A levels then did an HNC on day release when I started work passing with distinction. Wondered if I could ask some questions:

does anyone know how many credits my HNC gives me?

realistically working full time but being a fast reader and worker how long would 5 x 60 point & 2 x 30 point modules take me?

can I do more than 1 module at a time?

how often do I have to go to the OU for tutorials etc?

I plan on giving them a call in a few weeks anyway but thought the power of hitched might help?!

Thanks

60 point courses - the guideline is minimum 12 hours per week. You can do more than one course at once but there is a limit (can't remember what it is at the moment - the website has all the details).

Tutorials aren't compulsory but they are really useful to back up your thinking and get other people's perspectives, also the forums are really useful if you can't attend tutorials. From the courses I've done they tend to be once a month.

Good luck - I'd recommend it!

Thanks BB I've been on the website and printed off a business school prospectus so probably just need to read it in more detail and then speak to someone. My Mum did an Open degree when I was a baby and really enjoyed it. Good luck!

My plan is to do 6 x 60 point modules and 1 x 30 point ( more than i need but i really want to do that module!) towards a degree in International Studies, with one case where they overlap by a few months and then doing the last 2 at the same time (i intend to work part time for that year) mine should take from Feb 2009 - October 2012. I am motivated by a case of lovely wine that I can drink when I have this degree ?

The module I am doing now has a couple of tutorials a month, the next one its all online tutorials.

I don't know about the credits as I have counted anything from my other degree towards this as I want to do all the stuff I will be doing out of interest.

I did my business degree with the OU. I did it with Systems Thinking, which no one knws what it is but it was really interesting. They have more choice now over your choice of subjects.

I took 6 years to do mine, but I didn't have an HNC or anything. I left school at 16 with O levels (how old do I sound ?) I did 60 points each year.

The limit is 120 points per year. Some of the people on my courses did that, but they admitted they didn't have a life and some said they wish they hadn;t done that as they gor lower marks.

A 60 point couse is about 12-15 hours per week. I found the courses varied, some I didn't seem to spend too much times, but my last level 3 point course had relentless reading and seemed to take masses of time, even though I'm a quick reader.

You don't have to go to the tutorials but I quite enjoyed them, it was nice to meet up with other people. How local they are depends on where the tutor lives and the spread of students. Some were held in the college where I can see the classroom from my bedroom window, others were about a 2 hour drive away.

Good luck all OU'ers!

Hi Lady Gooner,

Thanks so much for your reply and information. The Systems Practice does look interesting! Can you possibly remember which courses were easier than others? I'm potentially going to do an introduction to business studies; the 3 compulsory modules of business orgs & environs, business functions in context and making sense of strategy; then 2 options at level 2 & 3.

cheers

Good luck with your studying, I'm thinking of possibly doing as master with the OU, I just need to get over the past 3 years first LOL

Good luck! Exciting isn't it? I just finished my first 60 pointer - one down, five to go, its going to take me six years to finish my Lit degree as I can only really do one at a time, unless I have a sabbatical from work to do 2 or 3 at once. Then again, mine isn't work related, just for personal 'stop-my-brain-from-turning-to-porridge' reasons.

Reading already started for my next course - a level 2 (A210 if anyone else is doing it) which starts in Sept.

The courses have probably changed now. I really enjoyed both the Systems Practice courses, they were nicely presented. I liked the one about Business Functions (201?), they was quite easy to relate to real organisations. I wasn't that keen on B200 or B300, they were very heavy in both reading and theory. B300 was horrible, I failed the exam the first time, it was the only course where I get 'didn't get it'. It was a shame I got such low marks on B300 as I'd got really high marks on all the others, but because of the weighting it dragged my degree classification down.

Overall it wasn't too bad but the level 3 courses were a lot more work than level 1 & 2.

Good luck, it was a really good experiece (most of the time ?)