OU Humanities

My Open University degree is a BA (Hons) in Humanities with History, which I did between 2004 and 2010. Like all OU degrees, it is comprised of a number of modules (they were called 'courses' at the time I studied) and I detail them below.

DD100 An Introduction to the Social Sciences	A103 An Introduction to the Humanities
DA204 Understanding Media	MA290 Topics in the History of Mathematics	A297 Reading Classical Latin
AA310 Film and Television History	AA312 Total War and Social Change: Europe 1914 - 1955

DD100-04B An introduction to the social sciences: understanding social change

This module ran for 10 years, which is about average for the OU, and I did it during its mid-life in 2004. Not only was it a course in its own right, it could also be put towards a degree qualification and this is what I ended up doing. I was attracted to the designatory letters that went with it, Cert SocSci.

I had nothing to compare it with as it was my first experience with the OU but it seemed quite modern and up to date as far as I could tell. Quite a lot of the course, especially the first few weeks, was teaching the student how to learn. Examples included time management, taking notes, writing in your own words, and referencing.

Looking back on it, there is no doubt it was a very good introduction the OU way of doing things and learning at HE level in general. There were television programmes which accompanied the course and these either had to be watched live on BBC2 in the early hours of the morning, or recorded and watched at a more reasonable time. There was also a study skills video supplied on VHS, which appeared to be a bit of an afterthought. Ten audio cassette tapes completed the Audio-Visual aspect of the course.

The written material consisted of A5 sized textbooks each with an accompanying workbook. I personally found the workbooks a bit annoying and distracted from the ‘academic stuff’ in the main texts, but I’m sure other students appreciated them. The areas covered were Criminology, Sociology, Psychology, Human Geography, Politics and Economics. It gave a good foundation to all of these Social Science subject areas. The Politics and Economics blocks were quite heavy going compared to the other disciplines.

My tutor was an academic in the International Relations Department from the University of Kent who had just been awarded a PhD from the University of Stockholm. I think he was just using tutoring for the OU to prop up his relatively poor full-time wages. He was OK as a tutor. Not overtly friendly or approachable, but fair and reasonable nonetheless.  I got 82% on this course which I was very pleased with because it was my first experience with the OU and the first time I had studied the social sciences.

A103-05B An Introduction to the Humanities

This module ran for 11 years, and I did it mid-life in 2005. This was also a qualification in its own right and led to a Certificate in Humanities with the designatory letters, Cert Hum. It was however a very different course to DD100, the social science course that I did the year before. The texts were very old fashioned and very much in the 'book bashing' tradition with minimal introduction to studying with the OU or general study skills. There was some evidence of a mid-course review because the introduction looked newer than the rest of the course and had non-course team authors. I remember there was some non-assessed preliminary work on War Memorials that I found a bit tedious, not to mention patronising. The formative first assignment on Silent Spring looked like a bit of an afterthought as well.

Rather unusually there were 32 television programmes to accompany this module - one for each week - all of which had to watched on BBC2 in the early hours of the morning or recorded. I only found one of these remotely relevant to the course, the other 31 were just for general interest only. I can't help thinking this was a waste of resources. 

Like most foundation courses, a wide area was covered but in little depth. The subject areas were: Philosophy, Classics, History, History of Science, Literature, Music, Art History and Religion. I enjoyed all of them except for History of Science, which ironically, I was looking forward to the most. It didn't seem to be written in the same style as the other subjects, for some reason. 

The course concluded with the interdisciplinary topic 'The Sixties' which divided the cohort somewhat. I found it OK, but others loathed it. The tutor on this module was a bit strange. He referred to his students as 'Fishers' and disappeared abroad for a few weeks over the summer where he was incommunicado.  All his tutorials were held at a distance involving a Zoom or Teams type of arrangement that I didn't bother with. 

I did slightly better on this module than the first one and scored 83%.

DA204-06B Understanding Media

This module ran for only 5 years and I did it in its first year of presentation in 2006. It was the first and last proper 'media studies' type module that the OU offered, although they had been running an MA in popular culture for a while.

I did this module for a number of reasons. Firstly media studies has a bad reputation regarding its academic worthiness and I wanted to see for myself what it was like. Secondly, it was a part-social science part-arts/humanities course and since I did the two corresponding foundation courses in both of these disciplines I felt I was ideally prepared for it.

It was a good module but not without its issues. It was more of a social science course than a humanities one and it was a good step up in difficulty compared to level 1. For a media studies course it was remarkably light on audio visual and media resources. The interactive DVD in the provided educational materials was never actually used in the teaching of the module, which was a bit odd. I didn't find the first chapter on 'celebrity' particularly engaging but things got better as the module progressed.

My tutor was very good. She was a psychology lecturer who had won tutor of the year a few years previously and was very highly regarded. She really engaged with her students and showed a lot of enthusiasm.

The exam was held at Bishopgate Institute by Liverpool Street station in London. In the row of 12 or so places laid out in the exam room only 4 students attended. A lot must have dropped out. I remember at some point during the year I was told that the three tutor groups in the London region were merged into two and my tutor took over the responsibilities of the merged cohorts.

Nobody was more surprised than myself when I was awarded a distinction. An adjustment of the grade boundaries by the Award Board meant that I moved from a Pass 2 to Distinction. It helped that there had been a marking boycott during the first few weeks of the module and this automatically raised a 'special circumstances' flag which helped facilitate this.

MA290-07B Topics in the History of Mathematics

This 30 point module ran for a staggering 21 years between 1987-2007 and I did it in 2007, the last year of presentation. It was a very good module but was definitely showing its age when I did it. Many of the original course team had either left the OU, retired or died. The module was offered for so long because the OU had nothing to replace it with, so they kept it going for as long as they could. History of Science and Medicine was once a thriving research area of the OU, but at some point it had stopped being so.

I had a particularly miserable tutor. I never found out much about him and had no idea where he worked or what he did. He was quite pessimistic and did everything he could to demotivate me, but my love for the subject kept me going. I obtained my best ever exam mark for this module both in the assignments and the exam at the end, but no thanks to him. The exam was at Bishopgate Institute like the one the year before. I remember I had a cold at the time but it didn't appear to affect my performance. I was more than pleased when I was awarded a distinction.

A297-08B Reading Classical Latin

I did this 30 credit module in 2008 which was in the mid-stage of its life. It was my least favourite module and I was lucky to scrape a borderline pass with a 'Pass 4'. My end of year exam mark was a very low 43%. After I the exam I was convinced that I had failed and even had A251 World Archaeology lined up as a replacement module just in case I couldn't face the resit. Some students did very well on this module, and enjoyed it a lot, so it was very much a marmite course. It was not evenly paced. The first third or so of the course went too slowly and dragged terribly. The mid-third was about right, and the last third was rushed and the material was not properly explained. I never really got a handle on it.

The books provided were very old fashioned and were described by some members of the course team as 'unforgiving', which I would not disagree with. There was some attempt to 'bridge the gap', so to speak, by the A297 course team providing copious supplementary material to support the somewhat dry third-party textbooks, but this just made the course materials unwieldy and confusing in places. I was lucky to have a very good tutor who went above and beyond her responsibilities to support and encourage her students. I'm glad I did Latin as part of my qualification profile but probably wouldn't want to do it again.

AA310-09B Film and Television History

This was probably my favourite module I have studied with the OU and was quite light in terms of workload considering it was worth 60 credits at level 3. I did it in 2009 towards the end of it's 9 year life. The highlights were the extended essay on the rise and fall of the single play in television and the 'kitchen sink' dramas of the 1960s and 70s. The lowlights were the rather eccentric and contrary tutor, and the films we were expected to watch. They were supplied on VHS tape, which were archaic even for the time, and others were not supplied at all. Some of the European cinema examples were particularly hard to obtain. 

I was convinced that the tutor wasn't marking the assignments properly or engaging with his students appropriately. He wrote comments such as "Goof" and "Hood" instead of "Good" on returned work. For one assignment, I was criticised for not including any pictures, so when I included one in the subsequent assignment I was criticised for "including it for mere adornment". We were asked to contribute to a Wiki that he had set up, and when a student made a contribution they were chastised for altering it. I made a complaint about him using the complaints procedure, which appeared to lead to nothing at the time, but a few weeks later I noticed that his attitude changed towards us somewhat and the marks he was awarding were higher than before. I wasn't complaining at this stage and just went along with it. I was pleased to get a distinction for this module because I enjoyed the subject even though my personal tutor did little to enhance the learning experience, or even facilitate it.

Shortly after I did this module, the OU discontinued the media studies offering for their Social Science and Humanities degrees, which is a shame.

AA312-10B Total war and social change: Europe 1914-1955

This module ran for 13 years and I did it mid-life in 2010. It was the hardest module I did as part of the degree. The amount of reading was enormous. It wasn't helped by the set book, Europe 1880-1945 by J M Roberts, which was so bad that even the tutors admitted it was unreadable and recommended better alternatives. My tutor was from the 'hard but fair' school which suited me very well. I got behind on this module several times and my tutor always gave me an extension. The marking was very thorough but always fair. He was an OU stalwart who had worked for the OU for over 25 years. As far as I am aware, he is still there. 

I remember going to an optional day school at the OU London regional centre in Camden Town on a Saturday as part of this module. Like a lot of OU events, it was thoroughly disorganised, we were packed into a room far too small to accommodate us all, and the other punters were about as friendly as a rattlesnake in a lucky dip. Lunch, or any other refreshment facilities, were non-existent and we were sent out to fend for ourselves at lunchtime. I took this an opportunity to abandon the rest of the event and not go back in the afternoon. I wasn't enjoying it and I didn't want to prolong the agony.

I enjoyed this module on the whole, although it was showing it's age in places. I really liked researching the history of the welfare state for the extended essay because I have always had an interest in this area of social history. I got a Pass 2 for this module, but I consider myself lucky that I didn't get a Pass 3 because I was borderline between the two grades.

Presentation of Graduates

By successfully completing all 360 credits worth of modules, it meant that I obtained my First-Class Honours degree in Humanities with History. Although I graduated in absentia on 31st December 2010, the optional presentation of graduates ceremony was about 6 months later on Saturday 4th June 2011 at Ely Cathedral. I remember waking up a few mornings previously to the big day wondering why I ever agreed to do this as it's really not my thing at all. I think I had got to the point where I didn't know and didn't care, and on the morning of the ceremony I felt exactly the same.

We left the house shortly after nine O'clock in the morning, but we got off to a bit of a false start. Just as we got to the post box at the end of our road Carolyn said she wanted to go to the toilet, so we had to go back home again. Fortunately, I had allowed for a late start, so it didn’t affect the timetable too much. I think Carolyn was more nervous than me. It helped that we got the 136 bus from the Headcorn Road bus stop nearly straight away. Carolyn remarked that I looked like a gangster in my suit and dark glasses, and looking at the photograph that she took I agree with her.

We caught the train from Grove Park to London Bridge where Carolyn used the toilet again. Then we took the Northern Line to Kings Cross. This bit of the journey was a bit fraught. Firstly the barrier at London Bridge didn’t work properly so we couldn’t 'touch out' the Oystercard and then Carolyn got a bit grumpy on the tube itself when she said that she should had been reading a book rather than talking to me. I could tell that something was up because I saw her face drop - aways a bad sign. She got a bit narky at Kings Cross as well when she moaned that we didn’t know which platform we were on. After we saw our train listed on the destination board we found somewhere to sit and Carolyn said she wanted to go to the toilet, yet again. When she came back the grumpiness had appeared to have evaporated. We sat in the front part of the 'Kings Lynn' train on platform 1a, as the rear part only went as far as Cambridge.

Most of the train journey was in silence, as I really didn’t want to say anything to Carolyn which might set her off so early in the trip. A young couple in their early twenties sat opposite us most of the way. They were very affectionate, but the kissing and cuddling wasn't at all embarrassing. They moved seats at Cambridge and sat next to their friends who had just got on. A middle-aged woman with some young children sat opposite us for the last leg of the journey and they got off at Ely when we did.

We decided to take a taxi to the Cathedral. It was only five quid and it saved us the walk up a very sleep hill. I really didn’t want to wear Carolyn out too soon. The taxi driver dropped us off outside Ely Cathedral where we were met by an OU volunteer who gave me a badge and some literature about the OU alumni.

The first thing I had to do was register my attendance in one of the two tents which were erected on the green. There was a bit of a queue, but we were only in line for a minute or two. I gave the lady my name and she gave me an envelope with two tickets in it, which she asked me to open in front of her. There was one for me and one for Carolyn. As well as our entrance tickets to the cathedral they also had our meal vouchers attached to them, which in my opinion was the most important part.

Having successfully registered I had to get robed up, but before I went in the other white tent a lady standing outside gave me another OU badge pin thingy. She tried to engage me in conversation but I was too focused on what I had to do next to take much of it in. Carolyn dealt with her better than I did. The robing was straightforward. I produced an email and a woman gave me a robe. I took it to another lady who put it on me and adjusted it. Job done.

The next stage in the afternoon's events was the photography, which was held in a brick building at the back of the cathedral. I thought it was just me being photographed but apparently I had ordered the 'family pack' which meant Carolyn was included as well. She had to remove her glasses because the light was reflecting off them but the photographer put us at our ease and handled us both very well. He adjusted my clothing for me to make me look respectable which is a task in itself.. He was a very nice bloke and he did a good job.

It didn’t take long to do all the things that we had to do and the next thing on the agenda was lunch. We walked to where we thought the lunch place was but we weren’t quite sure. Carolyn had another wobble and did her ‘I’m not walking around all day' routine and she asked somebody where it was. It turned out that we were walking in the right direction after all. We got to the place which I think was a theatre and handed our vouchers over. We were given a paper carrier bag with a bottle of water, an apple and a cake in it. Then we chose our own crisps and sandwiches. There were vegetarian sandwiches but no ‘vegetation rolls’ like the OU email mistakenly said. We ate them outside sitting on a wall as there were no seats available on the grass area. Carolyn hardly ate anything and she moaned about not being able to digest things now that she is older. I’m not sure what that was about.

We had a cup of tea inside one of the buildings and after a while made our way back to the Cathedral. We took a few photos and hung around a bit, before making our way to join the queue to enter the cathedral. Although it was a long queue it moved quite quickly and we were soon inside. I had a reserved seat but Carolyn had to fend for herself and find somewhere suitable. We kissed goodbye in the aisle and then parted. I made my way to row N, seat 2 and Carolyn found a place towards the back.

I was the only bloke in a row of women, all of us with first class humanities degrees. We were one of the first to be presented on stage after the graduates with higher degrees. The girl on my right reminded me of Cathy Poll's daughter from work. On my left was a younger girl who spoke a bit like Nyree. Both were very nice and very friendly. I'm not normally good at smalltalk especially when I'm nervous, but both put me at my ease. Next to the Nyree clone was an older woman who was also friendly who had studied modern languages. She was foreign sounding and appeared to be on her own.

After listening to some organ music and browsing through the programme for a few minutes, the ceremony finally started. There was slow procession of big-wigs up the very long aisle and then a bit of a speech by Martin Bean, the Vice Chancellor. After a few minutes a lady ushered us to the side and led us up to the stage. We gave our name card to woman who gave it to somebody else who read it out. I wasn’t at all nervous and walked on stage without any problems. Martin Bean shook my hand and congratulated me, addressing me by name. He asked me if I had any family with me and I said that I had my wife with me. Then he gave me a 'congratulations card' and I walked off stage, beckoned by one of the ushers. Then I was directed back to my seat. I couldn’t believe it was over so quickly. The rest of the ceremony was a bit boring because it involved clapping other people that I had very little interest in, and it went on for quite a while. It was a bit of an anti-climax really. I thought I would be more nervous and excited than I was, but in the end I took it all in my stride.

Martin Bean finished up by given a jolly but inspirational speech and then there was the slow procession of the big wigs off the stage. When it was over nobody really knew what to do.  After a bit of looking around the graduates and guests met up with each other. I walked out towards the entrance of the cathedral not knowing where to meet Carolyn but saw her sitting alone towards the back. When I sat next to her, I could see that she was crying but assumed that it was because she found the proceedings emotional. It turned out that she had missed seeing me walk across the stage because she was looking at me in the distance and not at one of the plasma screens which were placed all around the cathedral. Even though it was no big deal as far as I was concerned, Carolyn took it quite badly.

After unsuccessfully trying to console her we left the Cathedral and made our way to the green where the tents were. Carolyn was very up and down and at one point she rushed off to ‘talk to anyone’ and came back with a piece of paper in her hand. It was an order form for a video of the proceedings. She banged on about buying this for her instead of Christmas and birthday presents etc. I tried to console her again but she wasn’t interested. She rushed off to buy a cigarette from a bloke she saw standing about and smoked it in front of me, still rambling gibberish about what she thought she did wrong in the cathedral.

She appeared to calm down a bit at this point and we hung about to take another couple of photos. She said she didn’t want to go home but eventually we took a slow walk back to Ely station. She was in a reasonably good mood during the walk but occasionally wobbled. When we got to the station there was a bit of confusion with regard to what train we were catching and what we did next but finally we decided to have a cup of tea in a café on the platform. It went well really.

We finally got to platform 2 which all trains towards London appear to stop at and waited for the Kings Cross train. She more or less held it together. We got the train and sat near a woman who was desperately trying to control her naughty children. She slapped them at one point and this upset Carolyn so we moved to another carriage. Rather than make things worse this made actually made things better. She said that at least she wasn’t a child beater which appeared to help her self esteem. The rest of the train journey was uneventful and the tube wasn’t much of a problem. We retraced our steps and got the train from London Bridge to Grove Park. Before going directly home she wanted a veggie burger so we stopped off at the chicken shop and ate it on the wall by the bus stop.

I was glad to get home, and Carolyn appeared to be in a good mood at first but the subject of the 'looking at the screen' reared its head again so we had to go through all the bollocks about whether she was right or wrong not to look at the plasma screen. We had a bit of an interrupted night because of it but she calmed down eventually. I wasn’t angry with her, just relieved that the day was all over, and that I managed it as well as I did. I enjoyed the day, but it wasn't particularly memorable or significant as I thought it might have been when I arranged it several weeks ago. Would I do it again? Probably, but it wouldn't upset me if I didn't.