10 things you should know about the OU

1.    It’s YOUR university. I’ve studied at campus-based uni as well as the OU and I have to say the OU feels far more like it’s all about me. Campus-based uni can feel a bit ‘us and them’ meaning there’s a definite line between students and academics but that line at the OU is beautifully blurred. Many of the OU staff are students themselves so the feeling of mutual respect and appreciation is far greater.

2.    You don’t actually get to ‘study at your own pace’. Well, not really anyway. You still have a schedule to keep to in that you have a TMA due at regular intervals so you don’t get to slack off for a couple of months if you want to. I’ve made the mistake countless times of letting my efforts slip and it does you no favours.

3.    It’s the UK’s best kept secret. Most of the time, if you tell someone you study with the OU they’ve either studied with them before or at least know someone who has, but every now and then you’ll come across someone who hasn’t even HEARD of the OU. Clearly they’ve been living in some parallel universe and have only just transferred here. Either that or it’s one of those things that you only know about if you’re somehow involved.

4.    You get to choose where you graduate. You’re not tied down to your home town as a graduation venue so you can make a real trip of it and graduate at any of the available ceremonies. Even though I’m a Geordie born and bred I’m choosing to graduate at Manchester in October because it happily coincides with the start of my holidays, so I get a night in my favourite English city before zooming up to the Scottish Highlands for a week of being eaten alive by killer midge.

5.    Offer an inch and by the time it’s used, you’ll want to give a mile! The OU are ridiculously keen for their student body to be involved in every possible aspect of the running of the university. Whenever you offer your services they make you feel so valued and important that you just want to offer more and more. Let me tell you, it’s so interesting being involved in the inner workings too, I strongly suggest you get involved in some way.

6.    Despite not being a traditional campus-based university, the OU campus is the nicest I’ve ever seen. Unique buildings, modern facilities, incredible sculptures set among beautiful landscaping and best of all – squirrels, lots of squirrels. If you ever get the opportunity to visit the OU campus in Milton Keynes, snap it up because it’s really well worth a visit. (Pictured is an aerial view of the OU campus in MK)

7.    OU students ain’t what they used to be. Before I started studying with them, I thought the OU was the reserve of fuddy-duddy tweed-wearing elbow-patch sporting men who already had doctorates and just studied for the fun of it (or ‘cos they were so boring they had nothing else to do), but it’s becoming a much younger university with the average age of an OU student now at 32 (crikey – that’s my age!)

8.    It’s really easy, if you want it to be. Studying isn’t hard and I mean that honestly. It’s a chore, and there are times I just really can’t be bothered to spend a few hours with the books, but once I get into them and get into the swing of it I really enjoy the process. I’ve yet to study a module where the books aren’t engaging and interesting and I’ve yet to sit down to a TMA and think “what the hell is it asking me to do?” Starting off down the study path is scary, no doubt about that, but it’s fun and easy as long as you WANT to do it.

9.    Having an OU qualification is like wearing a ‘superhuman’ badge. People/employers/peers seem to treat you with a different kind of respect knowing you studied with the OU. It’s a completely different ‘oh, that’s interesting’ when you say you’re an OU graduate. Probably because you’ve taken the road not typically travelled and done it yourself. Respect compadres, respect.

10.    It can be addictive. REALLY addictive. Just sayin’.