Life As An Open University Student - A Degree in International Studies

So I briefly touched on the subject of what I am studying with the Open University and that is International Studies. I want to talk about why I chose this particular subject and where I hope this degree will lead me in the future.

I've always had a keen interest in current affairs and in particular what is happening overseas and how this effects how we doings in the UK as well as wanting a career that will allow me to travel or work overseas it seemed that the right fir for me would be a job in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I looked into the kind of qualifications diplomats and Embassy workers have and one that i saw pop up a few times was International Studies so i decided to look more into the subject area and decided that this was the degree that not only suited my career aspirations but also sound like something I I would want to study, I didn't want to have to force myself to go through the motions of getting a degree for the sake of it.

As I mentioned before I did look at doing this course through Leeds Beckett University part time but didn't want to work part time so I decided to go with the Open University and the flexibility that offered. As well as the flexibility to fir the learning around my full time job the open university gives you choice in the kinds of modules you can study which again was very appealing as you can tailor your overall degree to the areas within it that suit your interests.

The Open University covers a wide rage of topics under the umbrella of International Studies looking at areas such as International Development, Environmental Impacts, Living in a Globalised World, The British Isles and the Modern World and Understanding Politics in the Modern World to name a few. This means I can pick and choose the kind of topics i want to study as i move through each stage.

I am about to start the module International Development at Stage 2 which is the equivalent of second year if I was studying full time. I might discuss this particular topic in a separate post to give more info and details and also it gives me something else to write about haha!

I hope you enjoyed reading this post, are any of you looking to study with the OU? Or are you interested in International Studies? Let me know in the comments below.

Life As and Open University Student - Why the OU

Photo by Tran Mau Tri Tam on Unsplash

As you may or may not be aware I am two years in to a six year course studying for a degree in International Studies with the Open University. If you are not aware aware of how the Open University works the basic premise is that you study for various qualifications from home part time for the most part fitting in study around your life and work.

Studying in this way allows me to continue to keep my full time job and work towards a qualification that I hope will open more doors for me in the future. When at the age of 26 I finally decided what direction I wanted to take my career in after seven years working in administration for both local and national government I knew that a degree in International Studies would be the best option for me. I looked at doing a degree part time at Leeds Beckett University but that would have meant that I would have to have dropped hours at my job to part time to accommodate this, I wasn't earning much at this point and the thought of taking a pay cut at that time in my life was not feasible I had bills to pay and life etc. so this was when I looked at the Open University.

I had heard of the Open University before and so I took a look at their website and low and behold there it was International Studies, as soon as I knew I could study part time from home and I could also keep working full time too it was a no brainer and I set about filling out all the necessary forms to get me started. I'm lucky in that the job I have is a Monday to Friday 9-5 kind of job so I can fit studying into my life pretty easily.

Because I had been out of full time study for a few years it was recommended that I do what they called an access course which would give me the credits I would need to study at degree level, now I'm not entirely sure how the credit system works but it made sense at the time. So I started my access course in the October of 2014 and finished in the May of 2015. I passed that course with a distinction which I was pretty happy about and I'm glad that I did this access course as it gave me a good idea of what to expect from learning with the Open University remotely talking to tutors over the phone or via email it was a good insight.

Since completing the access course I have completed two years of my actual study for my degree this is known as stage one and is the equivalent to one full year at a normal university. I have passed both these modules so far but as these two modules were compulsory and covered a very board subject area  for students that will go on to study Criminology, Psychology as well as my subject of International Studies I found it difficult to motivate myself to actually sit down and read and submit the assignments as these are areas that do not interest me whatsoever. Ill be completely honest I kind of winged it these past two modules putting in the bare minimum effort purely because I just wasn't interested in what they were trying to teach me.

I'm excited to start my next module this October with the module topic being International Development. This topic is definitely the kind of subject I want to get my teeth into so I'm hoping this will help keep me motivated to sit down and put the effort in.