How to pick the best distance uni?

Tabbit

Hey all, not 100% sure this is in the right place, sorry if it's not.

I am looking to retrain in animal care for a career change. I have chosen to do a correspondence course and not to go to a standard uni for a few reasons;

• Distance is much cheaper. I have a 10k student loan already from 1 year at uni previously, I now realise that this was a stupid idea!
• I am currently living in Jersey for a while and there are no actual uni's here.
• I hate working at the slow pace that uni's and colleges always seem to set.

So, I am wondering how you can trust a correspondence course provider? My mum did a course a decade or so back and it later came to light that the qualification was only relevant in Scotland or something... Since learning that I am pretty much not trusting any of them on face value.

Unfortunately places you should be able to trust like Open University don't offer courses in the subject I want so that makes things trickier too...

Is there some sort of list of trustworthy providers somewhere that I cannot find? Have any other people had good experiences with providers of courses in this subject? etc etc any advice welcome please TIA

whodathunkit

Like most practical subjects, animal care isn't really suitable for distance study. Who have you found that offers it this way?

agrinnall

Exactly, that would be like becoming a brain surgeon having only used Operation to train. I can't imagine any reputable university would offer this (and as an aside it seems a stretch for animal care to be subject taught at university level anyway).

iclayt

Take it from someone who has always wanted to do animal care but never had the opportunity to do so - employers want practical experience, not just a piece of paper. When I was looking into it I emailed every veterinary practice, animal shelter, RSPCA centre etc in the area and asked them if they were employing for a certain role, what qualification would they hope to see so I could get an idea of which would be the most valuable. Every single one that replied said a course with practical hands on animal experience, however basic.

Why not do the same with the vets, shelters etc near you, as presumably if you live in Jersey you will be hoping to get a job based there afterwards. If there are no jobs either, it may not be worth doing at all. Would you relocate? See if you can get some volunteering experience in, but even this is highly sought after because animal care needs such practical experience.

All that said, perhaps doing an online course is a way to find out if the subject is are something you want to work in without committing to a practical course. One of the unis near me offers distance learning courses in animal care - they don't really qualify you to do anything, you generally get a 'certificate of achievement', but it's a start: http://www.warwickshire.ac.uk/courses/search_results.aspx?sa=Animal+Welfare+%26+Veterinary+Nursing&ct=Distance+Learning+%2f+Flexible.

Edit: This link might be more useful: http://shop.warwickshire.ac.uk/browse/product.asp?compid=1&modid=1&catid=21

Tabbit

I believe that it covers the more theoretical side, I don't imagine they'll be sending me any bunnies in the post to practice on! :rotfl:

No no, it's all about the legislation, nutrition, behaviour and such. I did a course in it when I was 17 and 80% of it was spent in a classroom, the other 15% was just spent cleaning out cages, it felt like only 5% of the time was spent actually handling the animals.... So it's not really a problem to do it as a correspondence course, but I can see why it sounds a little ridiculous on face value.

I can assure you that it is no where near a stretch to offer such things at level 5, 6 and above.

There are loads, but the one that look most trustworthy is this;

UK Learning College, BTEC HND - http://www.uklearningcollege.co.uk/animal-studies-btec-hnd-course-p-121.html

You finish with a level 5 and I think that should be a good start while I am stuck in Jersey, then I can look at where to go from there when I get back to the UK.

But I didn't really want this to be about what I was specifically studying... I really just wanted some advice on if there were any good ways of working out if they are trustworthy, as I don't know of any. Do they have to be signed up to a particular regulatory authority, or such things? Such advice would be much appreciated.

Tabbit

Thanks for the advice iclayt, really appreciate your input. Nothing you say can be faulted. Unfortunately it's just the way things are in Jersey that prevent me from doing things exactly the way you advised.

Actually as it stands I am stuck in Jersey for the next year, possibly two, then I will be returning to the UK. It seems here that there is only one rescue centre, and one zoo... As volunteering positions are so sought after, it is actually harder to get one than it would be to get a paid job doing it in the UK!!

I have actually studied this before, in person at Hadlow College, so i'm pretty sure that this is what I want to be doing, I have emailed all of the shelters near where I would likely be living in the UK to ask them if they would consider me for volunteering with my CV as it currently stands and if they value qualifications earned through distance learning, which they said they would on both counts.... So it is really just a case of making the most of my time before I can return home to do things the right way.

Thanks for the links to Warwickshire, they look pretty good, unfortunately they do not offer a distance course more advanced than what I already have, so I guess i'll have to keep looking.

Really appreciate your advice though ^.^

GoldenShadow

What career are you looking at after this?

My friend did a two year diploma in animal care/management and found it incredibly hard to get a job. She was in Tesco for a year after, then she was in Pets Corner for a year, and now she is an animal care assistant at a vets, but still on a low wage (working six days a week). They've promised that when they're certified to train they will train her as a vet nurse themselves (won't be for at least 18 months). Too much carrot dangling for my liking in her shoes.

She loves animals and is great with them, but it really didn't do anything for her career prospects. She was applying up and down the country for jobs but they nearly all wanted significant experience in a workplace environment, which is what she was trying to get. In hindsight it would have been much better for her to do vet nursing at uni.

Tabbit

I am looking to go towards the shelter side of things, I have no real desire to do anything vet related. I got distinctions in Nutrition, Breeding (mostly because of my interest in genetics) and in Behaviour on my last course. I think behaviour is probably the direction that I want to go. It's not really about the money.

Nothing I enjoy in life has a high monetary compensation in this capitalist society and unfortunately no amount of money would cancel out the mental anguish that working in those high flying office jobs would cause... So, if i'm gonna be poor I might as well enjoy it doing something good with my life

It's really just a question of how to improve my situation while in Jersey (by doing a distance learning course) without accidentally getting swindled by a pretty website that offers a duff degree

agrinnall

Thanks for the updates, what you say about learning the theoretical side makes some sense, and I can see from the content of the course that you linked to that it is possible to do it by distance learning. Whether the end qualification will get you any nearer to a job I think is still open to debate, even though you've been given some encouragement by potential employers I think experiences like that of GoldenShadow's friend need to be kept in mind.

I can't comment on UK Learning College, it's not somewhere I've ever heard of but my knowledge is much more in HE than in the FE sector. Might be worth trying somewhere like the Student Room to see if anything is said about the college there, even if the specific course isn't mentioned.