Studying languages, thinking of transferring to OU?

I study French and Spanish at Cardiff and I'm currently in France with Erasmus about to start studying for my compulsory third year abroad, but I'm already finding it very difficult to settle in and enjoy myself. I thought about dropping out all through my second year but thought maybe when I went abroad things would get better but they really haven't.

I had considered dropping out and getting a full time job but I've recently started looking into maybe transferring to the Open University to study Modern Languages. Does anyone have any experience with the languages course, or more specifically about transferring credits? Does it require an extended period abroad like most degrees? And as I know very little about OU, what sort of funding would be available to me?

Sorry for all the questions, very new to this!

Reply 1

Nitebot

I think all you can do is contact the OU advisory service and see what they say about the language courses. There's already recent threads about OU student finance and credit transfer.
http://www.open.ac.uk/education-and-languages/contact/index.php

(edited 12 years ago)

Open University

Milton Keynes

Reply 2

DouglasBrown

You are in year 3 of a 4 your course at university?

Arguably you should stick with it as much as you can as even if you did transfer you would have to redo quite a bit.

Also with languages, the year abroad and the regular contact would have a lot of advantage over just reading, listening and a much smaller amount of contact time.

If you did transfer to the OU it may be worth considering transferring to a slightly different degree, for example Business Studies with French, or European Studies.

You may, and I am not sure, be able to transfer what you have done in languages over so at least you don't need to redo much.

Distance learning is something I nearly always recommend people to consider. However with languages I am not sure if it is a good way of learning.

I am a natural 'distance learner' myself, but when learning languages I need the immediacy and 'forced' nature of classes and conversations for it to sink in.

Reply 3

Howells

Thanks for your post, I have been considering Business Studies with French actually as I've already completed a module in Business French. I understand your point about distance learning, but even with languages I've always found it easier on my own. I've hardly turned up to lectures because they bore me and I still hand all my work in and average a 2.1.

I'm just not in a freshers state of mind anymore, to go out and make a huge effort to meet people, which is essentially what most of your year abroad is. I just want to go home, work and finish my degree on my own terms sort of thing though I know a lot of people would disagree.

I've emailed the OU about transferring so I'm just waiting on a response now.