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Jill:
I’m Jill Arrowsmith. I’m a part time secretary and I’m studying a Level 3 course, Culture, Media and Identities, with the Open University.

I’m married, got two grown up sons. I thought about OU, I actually got the prospectus I think when my kids were babies and decided no, I wouldn’t be able to cope then, so put it on one side. But always in the back of my mind there's been a vague question of well what it have been like, could I have managed it. And then, as I was approaching 50, one of those big milestones in life, I was reading the newspaper one day and there was an advert for Open University, and on a whim I filled in the slip and got the prospectus.

My husband is pleased for me. I think he’s always quite glad when the exams passed and I can get back to normal then.

Ray:
She’s a very strong and determined person. She’s very focused on what she wants to do, and if she decides she wants to do something, she will usually do it and goes into it positively.

Jill:
Be organised.

I work for a Methodist Minister. Being a secretary, I have to be reasonably well organised with paperwork and stationery and computer and all those sorts of things. So that's been a bonus really. I haven’t had to start completely from scratch.

Minister:
When she’s actually under pressure with essays, she doesn’t say I can’t come in tomorrow, she says I’ll come in, do you mind if I leave on time this time.

Jill:
I work on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are free. I try not to study evenings or weekends. It’s something I do during the day and I finish when all the family come home. When I was a child I wanted to own a stationery shop. So I’m always buying pens and pencils. I love highlighter pens. I like a different colour for each chapter, pink one week, blue the next. And I love post-it notes. I scribble all over those. What I’m supposed to do, how many pages there are in the chapter, whether I’m supposed to listen to a tape or watch a television programme, I write it all down and stick it on the desk in front of me so that I can cross off the bits that I’ve done.

At the church, one of the organists who’s name is Alan, he’s doing OU. It’s been good meeting up with him just occasionally. Particularly coming to exam times, we’ve been able to sympathise with each other and give each other a bit of a boost.

Get support.

Alan:
The big essay is the four thousand worder and that's the that I posted a few weeks ago.

Jill:
Four thousand wow.

Alan:
That's a record really, I mean that's …

Jill:
Yeah, the longest I’ve ever done is two thousand. I don’t think I could cope with one as long as that.

I give mine to Ray to read but I don’t expect him to understand the content at all.

Alan:
No.

Jill:
But I just ask him to give it a read through, see if there's any spelling mistakes. That can be quite helpful. Sometimes if I’m a thousand words over he’ll go through it and say look that's waffle, cross out that paragraph.

Alan:
Yeah.

Ray:
Because people start this on their own self will, they don’t need a great deal of encouragement but, you know, the essays have got to be got in at certain times, so I think just give general encouragement.

Jill:
Review your skills.

What I discovered very quickly was my reading was in fact just skimming. I could read through a chapter of a novel with no trouble at all, but if you were to ask me to write an essay on that, I would only remember one or two points out of it. When you study academically you can’t do that. You have to actually engage with the text and that meant, for me, slowing right down and taking notes.

Some weeks I can sit and read a whole chapter almost in one sitting because it interests me, it’s easy to read. There are other weeks when it’s quite tough for me. The subject matter perhaps isn’t quite so interesting. And on those weeks it’s amazing how attractive the ironing becomes rather then sitting there reading.

Find out how you learn best.

Tape:
Berkshire which any enterprise would ….

Jill:
The tapes that they give you I actually find very useful. Some students tend to push those to one side because they just can’t fit everything in. But there's discussions that highlight some of the difficult concepts that we’ve been reading about that perhaps I haven‘t understand properly and that can be a pointer in the right direction.

Ray:
I think she’s more prepared to enter a debate then she might have been before so it’s given her some self confidence I think.

Jill:
There have been times when I’ve asked why on earth am I doing this, but that's only fleeting, and I can honestly say that in three and a half years I’ve never once considered giving up.

Female speaker:
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