Hi I'm Sue,
I am going for my second attempt at OU. My first one was interrupted by the demands of my differing needs children and although I always intended to get right back on it, it just never seemed to happen.
Well that was until this year, I'd been doing the small courses via Open Learn since early last year and had built up quite a list of achievements and thought, well why not give it another go, the boys are now grown up, I've seen them through uni and they have their own lives and careers, so I should be able to concentrate on it more.
My previous attempt was a Law degree and had I got my bum in gear just a little sooner, I could have transferred more credits to a new one (an Open degree but with a good split between law and child psychology/education) but at least there were still some to transfer...as long as I finish this attempt by July 2026. This is going to take some work, the whole of my level/stage 1 credits had timed out, so they have to be repeated but luckily, level/stage 2 is pretty much covered with credits and then only level/stage 3 to do.
I'm a little bit daunted, feeling ever so slightly anxious about how I will cope with it but also incredibly excited. My health is not great, certainly compared to how I was before as last time I could still stand on my two feet and get about independently, now my 'feet' are a set of wheels and I have a 24 hour carer who has to be with me where ever I go and who quite frequently has to be my voice when my speech decides it wants to go on a little holiday.
The experience this time to last is already different, back then we didn't apply to Student finance, there wasn't DSA available to us and it was very much a distance thing and I can't get over how much more 'official' and formal it is now, I almost feel like a proper student with visits to a local uni for my DSA assessment and not getting the weird looks when using my Totum card (there would always be a double take with my old NUS extra card)
None of the boys went to their graduation ceremonies, so it would be nice to get to one, even if it is my own.