I’m writing this post on the train back to Derby from Cardiff, where I’ve been for my OU graduation ceremony today, along with 280 other graduands and their families and friends. I’d travelled to Cardiff on Friday afternoon with Jane, meeting up with my daughters from Exeter and Carmarthen so that we could enjoy a pleasant evening together. Today, the weather was beautiful and I enjoyed wandering around in my academic dress – no hat, of course!
The great thing about the OU is the diversity of the student body and the stories everyone has about the ways in which they’ve managed to achieve their goals. Some 11,000 of us graduated at the end of last year, with around 6,500 choosing to attend one of the ceremonies that are held across the UK and in more exotic climes like Moscow and Versailles. It’s been a real privilege to be a part of the family for the last 5 years. The support from staff, fellow students, my employer and family has been fantastic and my thanks go to you all – you know who you are!
Of the many things that were said from the platform today, perhaps the one which stuck in my mind most was said by Martin Bean, the Vice-Chancellor. When his speech from today is made available on the OU website (I’m pretty certain it was being recorded) I’ll post a link to it and double-check his exact words, but I’m convinced that he made an observation about the value of higher education not being solely an economic one. Rather, he argued that HE has a far wider impact on the individual, the society they’re part of and the wider world.
The Vice-Chancellor was absolutely right of course, but the “public good” aspects of education seem to me to being rapidly squeezed out of existence with the marketisation of HE thundering on at breakneck speed. I found myself wondering how much longer OU graduation ceremonies will look and feel the way they did today, with far more of the costs of HE having to be borne by individual students rather than from general taxation. I suspect those of us who have studied with the OU simply for “personal development reasons” will become increasingly rare as existing students finish their transitional allowance (TA) funded qualifications between now and 2017.
Still, there’s absolutely no doubting the Vice-Chancellor’s commitment to the success of the institution in the future and to the success of its current and future graduates. That’s extremely heartening and I suspect that the vast majority of past and present OU students want that success to continue and wish him and the staff of the university every good fortune in their endeavours. I certainly do.
However, for me, it’s definitely the end of my time with the OU. Without a psychology masters programme for me to progress onto, there’s simply nowhere for me to go despite the enthusiasm of the folk on the OU prospectus stand today. There’s still a chance that I might be able to study for an MSc elsewhere, and I’m waiting to hear from Leicester University in July whether my application for a place on their distance learning masters in occupational psychology has been successful or not. But £8,500 is a lot of money to find over a couple of years, even with the potential of some support from my employer. As good as Leicester may yet turn out to be, I’d really liked to have been able to spend that money at the OU – as it has earned my trust and respect during my time there.
In the longer term, I’m hopeful that initiatives like edX (the newly announced joint venture from MIT and Harvard) might just be enough to keep my brain ticking over. As unpolished as the presentation and assessment style of MITx (soon to be edX) 6.002x is, I’m certain that its methods will improve to eventually become comparable with those of the OU and other established distance learning providers – at least for purely objective, scientific courses. You’d never be able to run a BSc in Psychology through the methods that MITx currently employs however. It might just be able to work for a module like SD226, but it would never, ever work for DD307!
So here I am. An OU psychology graduate. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt (literally), as they say.
I hope that I can live up to Martin Bean’s assertions that being an OU graduate means that you will become kinder, more humble, positive and creative – I’m not sure that I’m any of those things very often. But more importantly, I’m optimistic that the OU will continue to succeed in its mission in the future. I’m immensely proud to have been a part of what it has achieved so far.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt