A network of support

Georgia has been impressed by the level of support she has received as a student, particularly with her hearing difficulties.

"I’m treated the way I like to be treated as a hard-of-hearing person. My current tutor always ensures that I can hear her during tutorials. The regional centre were very quick to respond to my needs. They provided me with an audio induction loop necklace which I used throughout residential school and which made the school for me. I’ve also attended a deaf awareness weekend which the OU organised, the idea being that students with hearing impairments tell tutors exactly what we need."

Find out more about the support services available for students.

Using feedback

One of Georgia’s fears was handling a world of words in a new discipline quite different from her natural science training.

"My main concern was how to write essays and I’ve never before done a subject with this level of words. But to me what is very useful is whenever the tutor marks my assignments, she puts a lot of comments in and that feedback I find extremely useful."

Chris, Georgia’s tutor says:

"Fear of essay-writing is very common. A lot of students say, ‘I haven’t written an essay for years’ and they really don’t think they can write. Every course has its own style of writing and theories and concepts, so there’s quite a lot to learn in every new course that you do. The idea is that from the feedback, they learn exactly how they’re progressing, what they’re doing that’s right and exactly what they need to improve on their subsequent assignments."