OU BSc (Honours) Computing and IT

Adam

I'm trying to make sense of the OU system at the moment, am I right in thinking that to complete the BSc (Honours) Computing and IT degree will cost the best part of 10 grand and by their approximation should take about 3600 hours of study?

edit: sorry, link http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/qualification/b62.htm

Yes - the general rule is 10 hours of study per credit so for a 360 credit degree it is 3600 hours.

Prices will go up over time but the cost is more or less in line with registration fees in an Irish university (I think). It could cost more depending on your choices.

Have a look elsewhere in this forum to see if there are tax credits available.

I have been looking at this course too - they do seem to have tidied up their computing courses a bit. The only really scary thing is how long it will take to finish this part time.

mimmi

Adam, a 60pt course is 600 hours over 9 months, this is approximately 14-16 hours total study per week, but you decide when to do it all, so hence more flexibility in terms of time management.

Most people doing a degree from scratch take 5 - 6 years, but you can study faster i.e take on more modules - maximum 120pts, depends on time you have available in your life.

defiant12

I've been thinking about this degree for a while now.
Approx €11,000 over 6 - 7 years is a heck of a commitment though.
I have a stable job now (not IT related) but there is no real opportunity for career progression, to be honest its getting pretty boring. The time has come for a change, this is what i have always wanted to do.
What's holding me back is that i'm not sure how employable I will be with the qualification.
I am 32 now and am struggling to see why anyone would employ a near 40 year old just out of college.
Assuming that the market will be saturated with young IT graduates and experienced professionals what chance would I have?

Any thoughts or advice?

defiant12

defiant12 wrote: »

I've been thinking about this degree for a while now.
Approx €11,000 over 6 - 7 years is a heck of a commitment though.
I have a stable job now (not IT related) but there is no real opportunity for career progression, to be honest its getting pretty boring. The time has come for a change, this is what i have always wanted to do.
What's holding me back is that i'm not sure how employable I will be with the qualification.
I am 32 now and am struggling to see why anyone would employ a near 40 year old just out of college.
Assuming that the market will be saturated with young IT graduates and experienced professionals what chance would I have?

Any thoughts or advice?

Maybe try to move across halfway through into IT support or something similar?

I don't think there is any reason to believe the numbers going into IT will shoot up in the next 10 years and there is plenty of work at the moment.

Annuv

Just a bit of advice, don't move into IT because you feel that there are or there will be good job prospects there. Move into it if you're genuinely interested in it, you'll need that interest to be successful and to tolerate the work, there's a lot of people in IT that hate it.

defiant12

The interest is there alright, that's the only reason i'm considering it...

mimmi

Annuv wrote: »

Just a bit of advice, don't move into IT because you feel that there are or there will be good job prospects there. Move into it if you're genuinely interested in it, you'll need that interest to be successful and to tolerate the work, there's a lot of people in IT that hate it.

Yes good advice.

A degree is essentially the first building block in this sector. It will provide you with the core foundation skills, underpinning knowledge etc, but you'll never stop learning or having to learn as you go along.

I think the OU will offer you a solid qualification and ways of learning that are very appropriate/transferable in the world of work. The attraction for you is that you can still go on working while you learn. But you dont have top committ from day one. Why not start on the Level 1 course TU100 and see how you go.

Noobsaibot21

I'm doing the B62 course and (if all goes well), i'll have 240 points by October. However, I will be taking a break to concentrate on getting some industry certs with CMIT (such as the MCSE's, CompTIA A+). I'm doing that as most employers want experience, Industry certs AND a degree. In that order. Getting the experience is definitely the hardest part and, while I will certainly be going back for the hons degree eventually, might as well get the certs ASAP and give me the best possible chance of getting into IT sooner.

aphex™

Noobsaibot21 wrote: »

I'm doing the B62 course and (if all goes well), i'll have 240 points by October. However, I will be taking a break to concentrate on getting some industry certs with CMIT (such as the MCSE's, CompTIA A+). I'm doing that as most employers want experience, Industry certs AND a degree. In that order. Getting the experience is definitely the hardest part and, while I will certainly be going back for the hons degree eventually, might as well get the certs ASAP and give me the best possible chance of getting into IT sooner.

It's worth noting for other people who might read this thread that the OU has courses in Cisco networking and Microsoft servers which would prepare you well for professional certificates in these areas as they are pretty big 60-point courses. I think a VMWare course is in the works. That's the vendor certificate stream with the B62 degree.

There are other streams such as software development and solutions development. At time of writing these are missing Java and Web Technologies courses respectively, but they will be available shortly.