Hi, I studied two modules at the same time in my first two years (four modules in two years). This is considered ‘full-time’ study, which worked out at about 30-40 hours a week. In my experience, the higher the level or stage a module is, the more time you have to spend studying each week. I don’t think I could have studied two ‘Stage 3’ modules at the same time, but I could manage two ‘Stage 1’ or ‘Stage 2’ modules within one year.

Thank you for this. I’m considering studying two modules in stage 1 and then one module at a time at a higher stage. Thanks again, really liked your video as found it to be really informative.

@@jaxb I'm glad I could help! 😊

Hi, I did an Open degree which meant that I could pick from a range of modules. I ended up doing a science module, a creative writing module and four history modules. Firstly, I don’t think I would say it is harder than a brick university. I imagine that the work itself is pretty similar. The biggest difference is that the Open University is very self-driven. You have to completely organise your time yourself. No one is going to remind you that an assignment is due or to read a chapter. However, you can take a lot longer to do an Open University degree - rather than condensing it all into 3/4 years, many OU students do it part-time and spread it out over 6+ years. Another difference is that the grade boundaries are higher at the OU. To get a first you need 85% overall (assignments + exams). In brick universities I think you only need 70% for a first. (70% at the OU will get you a 2:1.) Word counts will vary considerably depending on what module you do. In my modules assignments were between 500-2000 words. End of module assessments can be longer (3000+ words). The frequency of assignments can also vary but I had about one a month per module. (So, if you do two modules at the same time, that is two assignments a month). I hope that helped! If you have any more questions, let me know! :)

There are some in-person and online tutorials, which are classes run by a tutor. However, in the modules I took they were all optional. I went to a few but I didn’t actually find them very helpful. The majority of your study is completely self-directed using the books and the online resources.

As well as having an in-person library which any OU student can visit, the OU has a huge online library. This contains digitised copies of almost everything in their physical library plus access to loads of online materials like books, articles, reports etc. The library study volunteer role helps people in prison who are undertaking OU study but don’t have access to online resources. For those students, the OU has to print out everything they need for their course and send physical copies to them. To do their assignments, they might want access to more specialist books and sources so they send a request to the library. Library study volunteers take those requests and search the online library database for possible sources. So, for example, if someone was doing an assignment on the causes of WW1, a library study volunteer would try and find books, articles, and other sources that could help them, submit a request and then the OU would print those materials and send them to the person in prison. I hope that makes sense. If you type ‘Open University Library Study Volunteer’ in Google, lots of stuff comes up if you want to look more into it.

@@anovelcuriosity ah! Thank you so much for taking the time to explain. 🌻

@@anovelcuriosity If you have time/energy to answer another question, is OU’s curriculum similar to regular university? I’ve been looking at the BA in English literature, but the modules are strange. At Stellenbosch (offline uni in South Africa) we had 4 philosophy modules a year, linguistics, applied English language studies (AELS), English literature (plus themed tuts like creative writing or love poetry, etc), ancient studies, and so on. We could choose what subjects we wanted to take. On the OU website it looks like they’ve lumped a bunch of subjects under “introduction to humanities” or something similar, and the book lists seem too short and incomplete.

I don’t know what it is like for every subject, but I believe the undergraduate degrees are split into three levels/stages, with each stage being a total of 120 credits. Each 120-credit stage is equivalent to one year at a standard university in the UK, but at the OU you can choose the pace of your study. So, for example, typical university students in the UK study for three/four years to get an undergraduate degree. At the OU, you can spread it over a lot more years, but in the end you are still doing as much work as an in-person uni. 120 credits is considered full-time study (approx. 40 hours per week), 60 credits is part-time (approx. 20 hours per week). Each 60-credit module is run over a full academic year, usually running from October to July (or February to November). I think there are also some modules which are 30 or 90 credits too. In my experience, the Stage 1 modules do tend to be more broad and mix a bunch of subjects together. Stage 2 and 3 are more tailored to your overall degree. I ended up doing an Open degree so I could pick from a range of modules. In my first year, I did two modules. One was an introductory science module which combined biology, chemistry and physics. My other one was an introductory arts and humanities module where I studied history, literature, religious studies, art etc. After that, my modules were a lot more specialised - I did a creative writing module, and then three history modules (Early modern Europe, Empire 1492-1975, and Europe 1914-1989). Although I haven’t attended an in-person uni, I imagine the work itself and the assignments are pretty similar to what you’d get in any other university in the UK. I just had a quick look at one of the Stage 2 modules for the BA in English Literature and there are 18 books on the set books list. If you wanted more information, it might be worth getting in touch with the OU! :)

@@anovelcuriosity thank you so much for your reply! I’ll definitely send them an email. 🤍🤍

I'm glad you enjoyed! 😁

I really enjoyed the film when I watched it a few years ago so I’m intrigued to see what I think about the book!

That’s really interesting! I love hearing how other people approach assignments!

Thanks for watching! 😊

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed! 😊

I’ve heard great things! Hopefully I end up loving it too!

I'm glad I could help! 😁

I’m interested to see what I think about The Last House on Needless Street! Like you, I’ve heard a few mixed things but hopefully I end up enjoying it! Good luck with your month too!

I completely agree! He is so good in The Rocky Horror Picture Show!

Thanks for sending me a copy! 😊

I'm glad I enjoyed it too! I definitely want to pick up book 2 soon!

The characters in Sanctuary definitely made some very questionable decisions! 😅Hopefully I can get to the first book in the Caledon Saga soon!

All the modules I did ran from Sept/Oct to Jun/July so I did have summer holidays. It does depend on which modules you pick though as I think some of them start in January or February instead.

@@anovelcuriosity oh okay. and are there any other holidays ? do you know what heppens if you, say, miss a month of study cause of personal matters?

I’m pretty sure there were a few other holiday weeks throughout the year. For example, there was a week or two off at Christmas. As the OU is very much about you managing your own time, you can do the study pretty much at your own pace as long as you submit assignments on time. You can see what you are expected to study each week in the study planner, and I always started a couple of weeks early just in case there were weeks when I couldn’t study. Also, I’m pretty sure you can request extensions for assignments due to personal circumstances as long as you let the tutors know in advance of the deadline.

@@anovelcuriosity okay. thanks for replying! another quesition heheh: is communication easy? cuz im afraid if something urgent happens, or i have a question, how will i reach out for support? is it pretty much self-study or can u ask someone questions? because so far (im not enrolled yet) im struggling to get any reply back, not in the live chat, not by requesting a callback... so im worried. also, does your module have exams? oh but you live in England, so it's easy to find a near exam centre right

In terms of communication, for every module you get a tutor who is your main contact. Contact times can vary dependent on your tutor. Some of my tutors responded pretty much straight away to my emails, some took a bit longer. There are other ways to contact the OU - phone, email, live chat - but I’m not sure how quickly they respond because I didn’t really need to contact them during my degree. Most of the study is self-directed. There are course books and online materials, as well as some in-person and online tutorials. The tutorials for my modules were optional but they are good if you have any questions about the study materials. You can also contact your tutor with any questions. Exam wise, it completely depends on the module. A few of my modules didn’t have any exams. They had end of module assessments instead, which were extended assignments that you submitted online. I had exams in two of my modules. For the first one (pre-Covid) I had to go to an exam centre which was about 1 hour away. For the second one (during Covid), my exam was entirely online. I don’t know if they have continued to do online exams, and I’m not sure what international students do, so I’d try and get in touch with the OU to ask them.

I’m glad I read so much in the first few days because my reading pace has definitely slowed down over the past two weeks! Hopefully I can still read all the books for my calling though! 😁

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed! I definitely want to try and make some more vlogs because I really enjoyed making this one! 😁

Thank you! Hopefully I end up enjoying most of these!

I’ve actually read Sanctuary now and unfortunately I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. 😣 I loved the found family and the autistic rep, and I thought all the ghost stuff was really atmospheric but I struggled a little with the logic and actions of the main character. Thanks for the recommendation though! I’m always looking for more books featuring autistic characters and it was great to see parts of myself represented on the page!

Good luck with your TBR, I love how random all the challenges are and they make picking a TBR so fun!

@@sophiecarbone4977 Thank you! I loved how the challenges really encouraged me to pick up books I've had on my TBR for years!

Thanks! I definitely think you’d enjoy the Wicked Villains series!

It is! If you’re just looking to have a good time, I’d definitely recommend giving it a go!

Why are series so hard to continue! I always just end up starting new ones!😂🙈

@@anovelcuriosity there's just too many exciting books out there and not enough time to read them all 😅

Thank you! 😁

Thank you. I did have a great birthday! I'm very interested to see what I think of I Capture the Castle!

Thanks for the birthday wishes! I’m so excited to get to Sanctuary! I’m always looking for more own voices autistic rep, so I really think I could love it too!

P.s. Happy belated birthday! 🥳

Thanks for the birthday wishes! That makes me even more excited to get to The Witch’s Heart! 😁

I'm really excited to start it! 😁

Hopefully we both end up loving The Love Hypothesis! 🤞Good luck with your reading this month too!

I only started getting into romance last year, so I’m still trying to figure out what I enjoy too! It’s great that June ended up being a good reading month for you! Hopefully the TBR game prompts work out well and July is a good month too! 😁

I’m really in the mood for a fun romance, so hopefully I end up loving The Love Hypothesis too! To be honest, I'm still a Twilight girl at heart! I’ve been loving how many vampire books have been coming out recently!

It seems like a lot of people love The Love Hypothesis! I’ll definitely have to try and read it soon! If you’re interested, maybe we could buddy read The Wisteria Society!

The Tea Dragon Society is such a beautiful and cute book! I’d highly recommend Iron Widow and The Atlas Six, and I definitely need to read more Becky Chambers too!

Nineteen Minutes sounds like something I might enjoy! I’ll definitely have to look into it!

@@anovelcuriosity if you do get to it one day, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I'm pretty sure the essay was about 2000 words. During the evidence collection stage, I would copy and paste whole blocks of text and then I'd probably only use a short quote from that to support one of my points. It's a great way to get all your ideas and evidence in one place!

I assume the exams differ depending on which subjects and modules you study. I did two history exams during my degree and they were essay-based. Both had similar questions to those I’d done in my assignments, such as analysing a source or discussing what caused a certain historical event. If you check on the OU website, you can see which courses have exams. For some modules you do an extended assignment instead.

@@anovelcuriosity thanks much Sorry I m not British we got a totally differenti system in my country I was curious in case I can ever attend this uni thanks!

@@Alice-ie9zv I'm glad I could help!

Fingers crossed we both have good reading months in June!

Thank you! I’m glad I could be helpful! Good luck with your studies! 😁

I’m really interested to see what I think of A Natural History of Dragons and Kaikeyi! Hopefully I enjoy both of them!

I'm so intrigued to see what I think too! I've really been getting into romance this year and I already love the world and the characters, so hopefully I end up loving it!

@@anovelcuriosity 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

It was so good!

Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed! I particularly like Library Thing. They have so many good recommendations! I’ll definitely try and make some more vlogs! 😁

Thank you so much! Comments like these make me so happy! I’m so glad you enjoyed the video! I’ll definitely try and make some vlogs! 😊

Hopefully I end up loving both of them!

I can't wait to get to them! Fingers crossed they all end up being five star reads!

I definitely need to pick up some more Octavia E. Butler soon!

They were both so good!!