Foreign Perspectives

In normal universities you expect to meet loads of other students but the perception is that it’s a different matter in the OU.

However, if you’re following one of the recognised paths to a specific qualification you’ll often find that you’re with the same group of students for a fair number of years. For example, I was with pretty much the same group for the three years of my Diploma in French.

Where you can find yourself more on your own is if you’re not going along the normal sequence of courses to a qualification. For example, in my case I did the second course of the psychology degree first so my next course for it will be the first course in the sequence and therefore it’ll be a new group of people that I’ll meet.

Having said that, even in odd sequences it seems to be quite common to run across the same people through online forums though that never seems to be quite the same as meeting them in person. If you do want to go through your degree with a group of people that you’ve met in person it’s definitely better to go through the courses in your degree in the normal sequence.