Poor University Education

olly300

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

If anything, there's rather more spoon feeding on an OU degree (in the early stages) than there is on a degree at a bricks and mortar university.

Very true.

The courses are designed for people coming back to learning so they give you loads of study tips in their level one courses.

There as at a traditional university you are suppose to have developed these study skills before you arrive at university.

amy_lou_4

3v3 wrote: »

Uploading essays via the internet is merely utilising technology (and would save you a trip ) and I'd be a bit concerned at an archaic university that didn't harness technology to their advantage!

Hah, try Manchester Uni's languages department! We had to take everything into the office and get a little receipt to keep hold of. I did wonder how they managed to use plagiarism software on printed work, but hopefully they are moving with the times now...

I did European Studies and French, which was a mix of the politics, languages and history departments. I had 12 hours a week contact time- all language students did 4 hours a week of grammar, written langage, oral, and translation which were in small classes more like school, then each of my additional French, politics and history moduls had one hour lecture and one hour seminar per week (variable group sizes). Due to my combined studies, I had a lot more time in uni than most of my friends doing single humanities subjects- for example, final year history students had only 2 hours a week contact time and a very large portion was taken up with independent projects and a dissertation. I felt like for the most part, my lectures were often more than the "bare bones" which reflected the passion my lecturers had for their subject- I remember one politics course had a team of two lecturers who occassionally led the same lecture in a kind of double act! I feel very fortunate now, reading other people's experiences.

How many hours do you actually have, OP? I know you said you are glad to be in for two full days rather than lots of hours dotted around- even me, who lived 20 mins walk from uni, tried to jig my timetable to have at least one class-free day