Open College A levels

[bakes0310]

Im 26 now with no gcses higher than a D and i got some nvqs in IT at college.
Im sort of playing with the idea of bettering myself, and want to get some meaningful qualifications so oneday i can get a job that pays well.
Anyway im thinking of doing the open college to do some A levels then after i done them ill move onto open university.
Has anyone done something like this, and what is it like to do qualications all at home.

 

[dowie]

Not done nor heard of 'open college' however why not look at just starting an OU course - given the length of time these things take its worth considering whether you can just start one straight away. Find a course/qualification you're interested in and either see if your local library has some of the course books for one of the introductory modules or if some of the material is available here: openlearn.open.ac.uk/ - if you find you're able to cope with the material in a level 1 course (which is often A level standard anyway) then it might make more sense to just enroll with the OU....

If you're interested in anything maths/engineering/comp sci related then also have a look at these resources:

http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

you won't get a qualification from those two but there is a lot of useful material there for free.

As for studying at home - tis fine, you do need to motivate yourself more but I personally find that I can cover material a lot quicker at home than back when I was sat in lectures at university.

 

[Peedee]

Get a G-NVQ, Then a B-Tech, Then do a degree if you got good enough grades
thats what i did.

 

[Vidar]

Speaking from experience I don't hold much stock in distance learning courses, the fact is I always find far to many distractions at home etc etc

At 26 as a mature student like myself you are not going to find it easy to get funding/ or a college that will accept you to study A-levels, so have a good look around at alternative courses depending on what you want to study...

 

[Vidar]

Get a G-NVQ, Then a B-Tech, Then do a degree if you got good enough grades
thats what i did.

That's what I'm doing now.... a year to go and I start uni!

 

[UK-AL05]

Get a G-NVQ, Then a B-Tech, Then do a degree if you got good enough grades
thats what i did.

Universities still ask for gcse level c, with maths and english...unless there's a way to bypass it.

 

[Peedee]

Universities still ask for gcse level c, with maths and english...unless there's a way to bypass it.

Well Yes

In a B-tech you do key skills maths and english, if you progress well enough they are kinda the same as GCSE's.
Or You can do a Maths GCSE course along side a GNVQ or a B-Tech, its normally at a college one night a week for 3 hours, I had to do my maths GCSE again to get into Uni because i only got a MPP in my B-Tech

 

[Chaos]

Not sure where your based but in Scotland you can do an access course for adults that gets you into uni, maybe there is something similar where you are.

http://www.scottishwideraccess.org/