Have you seen the OU advert, music by Tom Odell – I can’t pretend.
The end comment is
The most important think you learn at the Open University is what you are capable of.
I never studied hard at school and left 6 weeks before my 16th birthday (end of August). My first job was at ICI. Back then all new entrants took psychometric tests, most went to work in the post room. The top scorers got an admin job straight away. I don’t know my score but I was in the top 5 and started work in the Finance department.
I hated the job and over the next 4 years had many jobs – shop work, hotel housekeeper, quality control inspector, and plenty of office jobs.
At 20 I joined the Post Office as a counter clerk.
I loved this job, lots of variety, meeting people and I could go home at lunchtime.
The Post Office was keen to develop staff and supported me through an Open University degree. They paid 80% of my fees and 50% for books and summer school. I think I got 2 days revision leave each year too.
It was hard at first. I was only 23 and was the baby of my study group and my fellow students helped me when I lacked confidence and felt like giving up. I loved the learning, and remember the day that Charles and Diana got married I sat in my spare room and wrote an essay on Attitudes for the Psychology module. I got my first ‘A’ grade. And that year got a distinction in my exam.
If it wasn’t for this, I’d never have had the career success or got to where I am now.
8 years on I’d gained a 2.1 in Psychology and was working as a psychologist at the Post Office residential assessment centre and supported to gain my MSc in Occupational Psychology and later my MBA.
But it was the first degree that made the biggest change, especially passing that first exam.
It made me realise that I was capable of so much more.
Not everyone takes advantages of opportunities the first time they come around.
But we can take them later.
But we need to put the effort in.
Most things take effort.
Is there something you should do?
Do you feel that you could do more … why not find out more, take the first step and imagine what it will be like when you succeed?
