Foreign Perspectives

The Open University have an interesting type of degree called the “open” degree which is essentially a degree where you can plonk just about any combination of courses into subject only to it meeting the broad requirements of a degree. So, for example, you need to have 120 points at level 3 for an honours degree but those points could be made up of courses in, say, physics, history, English and art.

Since I’m basically aiming at a named degree I’d ignored anything to do with the open degrees. However, the other night it struck me that there’s a semi-open degree option available too in that my life sciences degree only requires me to have 300 points of life sciences subjects and the remaining 60 points can be any subject.

Ordinarily, that wouldn’t really matter to me but as I have to collect the life sciences degree no later than 2014 any help along the way to that is welcome. So I had a think about that. In fact by this time next year I should already have those 60 miscellaneous points accumulated in the form of my current astronomy course and part of the certificate in web applications. Of those two, the astronomy course forms part of what will, some day, become a physics cum chemistry degree but the web applications certificate (a total of 60 points) doesn’t have a proper home at the moment. So, if I find that doubling up on the courses is becoming a bit much I could transfer the web applications courses into the life sciences degree.

That option has a lot of appeal in that my original plan was to do the main chemistry course next year and use those 60 points but longer term that causes a problem in that I would ultimately need to acquire 60 more chemistry points for the chemistry degree. It also has the plus point that it doesn’t leave the web applications certificate just hanging there unattached to any particular degree.