Hi,

Some of you may be aware that I am giving serious consideration to going back to working in I.T, (it's a long story - I'll put more details when I'm on a PC that doesn't have a knackered keyboard) and I'm also giving some thought to doing my masters degree... I've been told that the Open University do some good distance learning courses, but have no first hand knowledge of how good they actually are.

Has anyone been on, or knows someone who's been on an OU course and if so, how did it compare to a "normal" university?

Distance learning is not a problem for me... I'll be plenty motivated for this, and I don't actually need this for work, but I always said I'd get my masters one day and now seems like as good a time as any to start investigating.

TIA

OK, a little more information.

I was made redundant in 2010, and the manner in which this was handled shocked me to the extent that I walked away from I.T.
Basically there were only two support staff left, and we were both taken into the office. The manager said that they could only afford to keep one of us on, and then she said "And I'm afraid..." I swear she actually paused for 10 seconds. It was like the X Factor! "John, you'll be leaving us"

I went for an interview with my current employer, as I heard they needed a teacher with really strong IT skills, and got the job. It was a .5 role, (2 1/2 days a week) but that's fine because I was promised full time hours A.S.A.P.

Nearly four years later, I'm still on .5 hours, and we no longer teach I.T, so I feel it's time to move on.

The space bar on the PC at work is knackered, so I hope this information was worth the wait.

I would just add that to me it sounds like you would be doing a masters for the right reasons, ie as a personal challenge a genuine desire to learn more about a subject, rather than as a way to impprove emplyability and improve salary? I think it would be good for the former and not very effective/not worth the expenditure of time/money, if all you want it for is the latter.

Just my cynicism and general apathy to higher education talking, maybe. Or maybe just a result of me being stuck on the "Art" instead of the "Useful" tech tree.

The OU isn't quite the 'joke' university you might think if you weren't familiar with it. The days of men with kipper ties doing boring lectures at 5AM on BBC2 are long gone. These days it's quite up to date and, while it's probably not respected in the way the Russell group of Universities are, an OU degree is generally seen as 'a degree' not 'an overgrown hobby'. Especially if you already have a degree from a traditional university, getting an OU masters certainly wouldn't be seen as second rate. I'd agree though that having a masters might not actually improve your job prospects all that much; in general to me a masters seems to be either a) A requirement of the job, so you won't get any job if you don't have one or b) Seen as 'a good thing' but not a major thing so it might make a difference in a close call between two candidates, but it's to going to shove you to the front of the queue.

One of my friend is doing a web developer degree through OU while working full time. I'm not entirely sure it's made her more employable though in the end :S

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. As I said, I'm not looking at getting this as a career enhancing certificate. It really is more a case of proving to myself that I can actually do it. I need to challenge myself, as I am reaching that part of my life where I'm beginning to wonder... Oh, I don't know. Call it a mid life crisis if you like, but it's something I want to do because I want to better myself, as a person, as much as anything else.

If that makes sense.

Anyway, it's all academic, (if you'll pardon the, frankly brilliant, pun) until I get a full time job, as I won't be able to afford it until then.