Why I did an Open University degree

And why I'm not going back this year

Good evening everybody! Here’s a photo of my reading an Economics case study on the train with my girlfriend :)

Frequently Asked Questions

I knew what an Open University degree was because my Dad had done a load of them and his certificates were scattered around my house when I was growing up. A lot of people were unfamiliar with the Open University and I only realised this after I had to explain it to (almost) every person I mentioned it too.

So, if you are one of those people, I am going to give you a quick bit of context.

The Open University is an ‘distance learning’ university, meaning that it’s students can study the materials and obtain their qualification from anywhere in the UK. It is just like a normal university. It is still a degree but rather than moving to a different city and walking to a lecture hall, I just walked to my computer and watched it virtually.

This allows the university to charge significantly less for the price of their degrees in comparison to ‘traditional’ universities.

For context, one year was about £3,399 in comparison to the circa £9k + maintenance loan that you would pay at other unis.

The values exercise

After I got my A-Level results, I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself. My wonderful Mother is an NLP master practitioner, as well as an experienced psychotherapist. She suggested it might be useful for me to work through one of her exercises that she uses with clients who are unsure of what career path to take.

Since I was in a similar situation, I thought it would be worth a go.

The values exercise, from what i can remember, gets the client to think about what they would value in a career. For me, I was asked what my ideal day would look like. I always enjoyed study leave at school because then I could wake up on my own time, go to the gym and work on the things that were most important for that day.

My mother made the suggestion that I look into the OU to see if they offer an Economics course and if they did, if I still had time to enroll for the new academic year.

It turned out they did.

At the time this was great for me because I got to get my degree in the subject that I wanted and I got to do it on my terms.

Hmmm, maybe this isn’t for me

I was the youngest person on my course by a big stretch, as OU degrees are typically for slightly older people who are looking to retrain in a different area or perhaps they didn’t go to university in the first place.

I found the lectures boring, the content easy and the outcome was uninspiring. I was just doing it for the sake of doing it.

Nevertheless, I completed my first year studies and achieved a first so that proves i’m not dropping out because i’m a bum!

Values were right, vehicle was not

It turns out, what I value is freedom.

The freedom to work on what I love and do things I want to do.

So, I have chosen to build and invest into my own curriculum this year, with different subjects and ventures that I want to learn more about and that I actually have genuine interest in!

I have two mentors and half a dozen role models who I look up to study and learn from. I have chosen my own lectures and my own modules, that are going to actually take me closer to my goals.

University just wasn’t right for me because I didn’t see what I was going to get out of it.

What can you take from this

Well, like I said yesterday and will continue to say is that I am not qualified to give you advice. However, what I will do is relay a message that my mentor told me.

He said that most people walk through life with no idea where they are going, they are lost in a jungle following directions from other people telling them what they should do with their lives.

Sit down and ask yourself, what is it that I want to do? What is it that you personally enjoy doing and want to achieve?

Do not go through life trying to please other people at the expense of your own happiness.

CM x