Warning!

A convoy can only go as fast as the slowest ship. The open university
courses are not only written for the slowest ship, they're written for
one that's severely retarded, and one that hasn't even left port yet.

When you go for the induction meeting, usually a couple of weeks
before
the course starts, you're warned that's there's a lot of hard work and
a
lot of material to work through. But it's not until the course
actually
starts a couple of weeks later, that you begin to realise exactly what
they were talking about and what you've let yourself in for.

If the reading material was direct and too the point, it would be
easier to get through and could be interesting. But it isn't. It gets
on a number 68 bus and goes all round Chalk Farm. Then not content with
that little diversion it gets on a number 157 and goes all round
Crystal
Palace before it finally gets to the point.

Words like: Padded, Long Winded, Bloated, Tedious, Frustrating and Mind
Bendingly Boring come to mind.

When you actually start the course, the material starts to arrive
through your letter box. What starts off as a trickle, soon becomes a
flood, and you simply can't keep up with it. Eventually you have to
hire a skip to cart it away. What could easily be written in just a
few
pages, thus keeping it manageable, is padded, bloated and extended to
fill a telephone directory size manual (if you're doing computer work,
the software you're provided with is usually obsolete and wont run on a
modern computer, and would be completely useless in the real world
where
you're expected to be using it).

Then of course you begin to realise what you were being told at the
induction meeting. How much hard work it is and how dedicated you have
to be to finish the course. What they were saying about the amount of
material to get through and how you have to be so determined to finish,
only now begins to make sense and you can see what they were actually
getting at. And what a fool you were for letting yourself in for so
much aggravation.

As soon a you realise what you've let yourself in for, your immediate
reaction is to call it a day and cancel the course, thus saving
yourself
from months and months of unnecessary drudgery. You can't. They've got
that one covered too. You still have to pay, whether you like it or
not. There's no way out. You're in. And pay you will.

Be warned. If you're a complete idiot, then the Open University is for
you. Anyone with reasonable intelligence, look elsewhere.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Warning!
    ... >A convoy can only go as fast as the slowest ship. ... How much hard work it is and how dedicated you have ... then the Open University is for ... BTW you can cancel the course and get a refund which is in indirect ...
    (uk.education.openuniversity)
  • Re: Warning!
    ... > A convoy can only go as fast as the slowest ship. ... The open university ... <sniperazoo to conserve bandwidth> ...
    (uk.education.openuniversity)