{"id":7052,"date":"2017-12-06T16:23:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T16:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=7052"},"modified":"2017-12-06T16:23:45","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T16:23:45","slug":"i-doubled-salary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/student-stories\/i-doubled-salary\/","title":{"rendered":"“Online study worked for me – I doubled my salary”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Martha

Chancellor of the OU, Martha Lane Fox and Ryan Peddie<\/p><\/div>\n

Five years ago, Ryan Peddie from Newcastle was working as an IT Manager \u2013 but when his company started to face financial difficulties and approached a stage of restructuring he realised his job could be in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

He took stock of his career and decided to shift his horizons and ambitions into a career in finance.\u00a0 Self-motivation played a great part in Ryan\u2019s story as he embarked on a Foundation Degree in Financial Services with The Open University \u2013 his last study experience was 17 years previously when he\u2019d taken a HNC qualification in IT.<\/p>\n

New knowledge benefited ailing company<\/h2>\n

Initially Ryan funded his own studies, and secured a transfer into his company\u2019s finance office. This is where his newly found knowledge and the resources from the OU really started to make an impact:<\/p>\n

The financial state of my company at the time I started studying gave me lots of practical challenges to work through. All of the course materials I was learning were so relevant and applicable, and I could use my new skills straight away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the course progressed Ryan\u2019s new knowledge brought great benefit to the company and their fortunes improved to the point where they now have a \u00a37million turnover \u2013 and Ryan is the Finance Director.<\/p>\n

“Online study worked for me”<\/h2>\n

Ryan says the OU study method really worked for him, as someone working with a young family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked the face to face tutorials but really, online study worked so well for me. It was so flexible that it meant I could study when it suited me. There were lots of times when I was burning the midnight oil, and trying to squeeze it in amongst work and other family commitments. But it was worth it \u2013 I feel it\u2019s a great achievement personally and professionally to have changed my career, completed my degree and gained promotion to my current position.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recognition of his achievement Ryan received the Richard Delbridge Prize which is given by The Open University to the best student of that year\u2019s Foundation Degree in Financial Services.<\/p>\n

Take it further<\/h2>\n

Study finance with free resources<\/a> on OpenLearn<\/p>\n

Open University finance courses<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five years ago, Ryan Peddie from Newcastle was working as an IT Manager \u2013 but when his company started to face financial difficulties and approached a stage of restructuring he realised his job could be in jeopardy. He took stock of his career and decided to shift his horizons and ambitions into a career in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":7055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,22],"tags":[365,388,891,2135],"class_list":["post-7052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-stories","category-university-news","tag-career-change","tag-case-study","tag-finance","tag-student"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7052","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}