Foreign Perspectives

It looks like the Open University have gotten the message from the students re timely dispatch of materials for their course as my new Child Development course was posted just a couple of days after I’d applied for it.

That’s a big change from a few years ago when typically you’d receive the course materials at best a week before the course started. Now, in theory you’re not really supposed to start the course until about a week after the stuff arrives if you go by their course calendars but in reality most people I know are keen to get at least flicking through the books and whatnot as soon as they can to at least get a feel for what’s in the box if not to actually start work on it as such.

So far my record was receiving a Spanish course a few years back several months in advance which was a teensy bit too early really as I’d just finished the previous course a matter of weeks and wasn’t really geared up to start looking at the next one. It’s a little over a month in advance this time around which seems just about right were it not for the little problem that I’ll not actually get my hands on the materials for another two or three weeks as we’re in our place in France at the moment and probably won’t see the parcel ’til we get back to Belfast.

That little bit of extra lead-time is really necessary these days as the range of material that turns up is enormous compared to what they used to turn up. In place of a relatively small package of a course book and a few supplementary bits & bobs such as course calendars and the list of materials itself these days you get the course guides, supplementary guides, DVDs, DVDROMS, CDs and a whole host of other stuff. Even finding the “read me first” note can take a while and I’ve had courses with such a range of different types of material that it’s been scary to do anything more than attempting to find the contents check-list on opening the box the first time!