When can I finish my course?

Hey so I'm gonna be studying 2 modules to help me get into a 1st year course at a brick uni. However I can't study the modules starting in October. Only the ones starting in January.
On the modules I've picked, it says that the end date is September. Would I have to finish it in September, or could I finish it earlier on since it is distance learning? There are no physical exams.

Reply 1

Veet Voojagig

Original post by whitephoeniix

Hey so I'm gonna be studying 2 modules to help me get into a 1st year course at a brick uni. However I can't study the modules starting in October. Only the ones starting in January.On the modules I've picked, it says that the end date is September. Would I have to finish it in September, or could I finish it earlier on since it is distance learning? There are no physical exams.

Technically it is possible to race on ahead, so long as you have the study materials and assignment questions available... HOWEVER...

Your tutor is not going to mark your assignments until the due date has passed. The OU's online TMA submission system allows you to resubmit assignments as many times as you like, right up until the deadline expires. Some students use this as a way to make sure their assignment is submitted in some form or another whilst they continue to tweak it and improve on it. The OU is not going to leave themselves wide open by allowing an assignment submitted before the due date to be treated as the final submission, otherwise the student who rushed it (and got a poor grade) might come back and blame them for marking it too soon.

Secondly, your tutorials will be planned around the current study schedule, so attending them and sticking more or less with the schedule is beneficial to yourself if you want to get the best grades possible. I remember at one tutorial, a few of us had a slightly flawed understanding of a particular concept (myself included) and the tutor was able to correct us. Just as well or I might have based my essay on my incorrect assumptions.

Since you will not get your marks or module result before anybody else, why risk doing badly by rushing?

(edited 7 years ago)

Open University

Milton Keynes

Reply 2

Persipan

You could get the work finished earlier (that's usually the case, anyway) but you wouldn't be able to get your final module results any sooner because they come out at a set time, after the module board considers everyone's results and confirms grade boundaries etc.

Reply 3

whitephoeniix

Won't really be rushing. The time between August results day and September is literally less than a month. The only reason I want to be finished before September is because September is when the course starts and I'd rather not miss anything. I just wanted to know if it was actually possible to get the grades and go by 2017 results day.

Reply 4

Persipan

Will your entry to the brick uni depend on your OU results, or are you doing the OU study as more of a warm-up? Because results usually don't come out until a couple of months after a mixture ends, so if it's the former you definitely won't have your results by September from a January/February start module.

Reply 5

SuperCat007

Original post by whitephoeniix

Check the date that the module result will be available/ask the OU. If the end date is September, it could be that the results don't come out until October. E.g. my two October start courses had a June end-date, but the results weren't published until the middle of July. Check your new uni will allow this, as you technically may not have any results when you start uni.