{"id":20082,"date":"2022-01-18T07:01:12","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T07:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=20082"},"modified":"2022-01-18T07:01:12","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T07:01:12","slug":"you-can-achieve-no-matter-your-circumstances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/student-stories\/you-can-achieve-no-matter-your-circumstances\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You can achieve \u2013 no matter your circumstances\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 18, Candace Louison from Cardiff had a life-changing decision to make. Should she accept her offer to go to university as planned? Or kick-start her career and start making money? It wouldn\u2019t be until years later that she realised she had the flexibility to do both through The Open University in Wales.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI was adamant I would go to university,\u201d explains Candace, now 26. \u201cBut when the time came, I felt overwhelmed by the idea and took a gap year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started working in retail and progressed quite quickly in my role. A gap year soon turned into six years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Candace enjoyed earning a living, she knew a degree would be key to her long-term career plans and realised the time was right to invest in herself.<\/p>\n

Picking the perfect place to learn <\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cI decided to look into distance, remote degrees and saw the OU,\u201d says Candace. \u201cThere\u2019s this stigma about studying online and questions around \u2018is it a real degree?\u2019, so at first I was sceptical, but then I looked into it,\u201d says Candace.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m someone who will never buy anything unless I watch YouTube reviews, so I started watching OU student reviews. I think I watched every single OU-related video so that I knew I was making the right decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI picked the OU to study Business Management<\/a> firstly because it was significantly more affordable than a brick university and because of the convenience of being able to work full time alongside studying. The application process was just so straightforward too, it wasn\u2019t intimidating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finding the flexibility to earn while you learn<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Candace is the first in her immediate family to go to university and wishes that it was more known that students don\u2019t need to choose between higher education and working:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your family is not well off, there’s less urgency to pursue higher education. The urgency is bringing in income, you know, to multiply the household income so I think there should be a stress on the fact that you can do both.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want students, especially from Black communities to know you can achieve something even if circumstances aren\u2019t in your favour. Whether it be financially, mentally or just circumstances in general like where you live \u2013 there\u2019s a chance to bypass that and achieve what you want.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For anyone who might think that university isn\u2019t an option for them, Candace had these words of wisdom:<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t ever think it\u2019s the end, that you can\u2019t move to university because your family can\u2019t afford it, so you can\u2019t do the degree. Yes, you can. You could do it at home, you could do it in your free time, and if you\u2019re a member of the family who gives financial support, you can do all of that while working too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible, no matter the circumstances, you can achieve higher education and whatever career you have ambitions in.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The motivation to succeed <\/strong><\/h3>\n

Her family\u2019s strong work ethic has motivated Candace to keep gaining experience, even when the pandemic suddenly changed her plans. After being made redundant from her retail job, she grabbed the opportunity to start a virtual internship with the OU and Go Wales.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I had the opportunity to learn some real tangible skills. And most importantly, I got a real confidence boost,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s now juggling her third year of studies with two jobs \u2013 one as an intern for a digital magazine and the other working in customer services at Cardiff train station.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first, I thought I\u2019d finish my degree in three years \u2013 little did I know that working full time and studying is an Olympic sport!\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaining support from fellow students \u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Having the flexibility to fit study around life is a big plus for Candace \u2013 but she admits it takes a lot of determination:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think time management and personal effort is the key to passing with the OU. The actual distance part of learning is a bit of a reality check. You\u2019re really accountable for your own learning. So I think at first it takes a lot of getting used to, but the face to face tutorials are a big help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Candace knows the supportive OU student community are there to help \u2013 whether it\u2019s sharing wobbles about an assignment or words of encouragement:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d recommend students join the WhatsApp and Facebook groups, because you get a lot of support even for the simplest of things. Everyone\u2019s looking out for each other, it\u2019s just a really good support network.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd look at the forums on the module website too because people are normally asking questions that you wanted to ask anyway, and your tutor is quite active on the forums as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making her family proud<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As someone who has grown up wanting to be everything from a nurse to a teacher, ambitious Candace knows whatever she decides career-wise, she\u2019d like to go far:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think my heart is telling me that I want to work abroad. Transport for Wales have graduate schemes and I\u2019d be able to apply for one before I graduate. There are quite a lot of opportunities. But for now, I\u2019m really enjoying this role in partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n

As far as Candace\u2019s mum is concerned \u2013 she\u2019s already looking forward to watching her daughter cross the stage at a graduation ceremony.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s supportive. I told her that in-person graduations are happening, and she was like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m going to get my outfit ready!\u2019 I think that parents care about the piece of paper, they don\u2019t care about the all-nighters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Introducing a new photo series of OU students<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Candace is one of four students featured in a brand-new partnership between The Open University and Alamy, which aims to increase authentic representation of Black and Asian distance learning students. Find out more about this campaign here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 18, Candace Louison from Cardiff had a life-changing decision to make. Should she accept her offer to go to university as planned? Or kick-start her career and start making money? It wouldn\u2019t be until years later that she realised she had the flexibility to do both through The Open University in Wales. \u201cI was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[874,1525,1640,1643],"class_list":["post-20082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-stories","tag-fbl","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-ou-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}