Yvonne Quaintrell had a rough time and school and didn\u2019t do well. But it wasn\u2019t until she became a parent that she found herself so motivated by her dad that she decided to sign up too. And now it\u2019s become a family affair.<\/p>\n
Yvonne was inspired to study with the OU by her father Harry, an OU graduate: “Reputation had a lot to do with why I chose the OU,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d watched my dad doing it and he\u2019d always encouraged me to think about it. I have a strong memory of seeing him in his little study where he always seemed to be working very hard.<\/p>\n
Thanks to my dad I already had a very good impression of the OU before I signed up. He always said it was the best and spoke highly of its resources. I probably bang on about the OU now in the same way my dad did.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
“He was the first one in his family to get a degree and encouraged everyone else to do the same. Three of us in one family have now done degrees with the OU. It\u2019s a family affair.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yvonne\u2019s first attempts at education hadn\u2019t gone well: she was bullied at school, later dropping out of college. Several years later, after the birth of her son, she went back to college with a career in childcare in mind but struggled to fit classes around her life as a single parent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d always wanted to do a degree so I started one with another college doing it in the evenings. By then I\u2019d divorced and become a single mum and it just didn’t work. I really struggled to get babysitters so it was far too difficult to keep up. I was only there a couple of months before I left.<\/p>\n
‘It\u2019s easy to see why it can become addictive’<\/h2>\n
\u201cAll this time my dad kept saying why not do the OU? So I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
And when Yvonne remarried part-way through her OU studies, she inspired her new husband to sign up too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was really supportive and he already a degree in psychology. Seeing me study and seeing how flexible it was, inspired him to sign up with the OU to do his Masters.\u201d<\/p>\n